


I Stand Here with My Arms Up

by flower_rave



Series: The Feastfires Universe [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:48:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 37,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flower_rave/pseuds/flower_rave
Summary: “How’re you doing?” Theon asked.What he really meant was, “How are you handling the arrival of Gendry Waters – your one time best friend who you confessed your love to while begging him to come with you to Braavos, who politely rejected you, and who moved out from your shared apartment with only a sterilized email informing you he wouldn’t be renewing the his lease – knowing you’ll be forced to speak to him at least once this week?”“I’m fine."
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Jon Snow & Arya Stark & Bran Stark & Rickon Stark & Robb Stark & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Series: The Feastfires Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896229
Comments: 167
Kudos: 456
Collections: Still Rowing: A Gendrya Centric Fanfic Collection, Stylarke’s Fic Recs





	1. Part I

It was just past six when her plane at last touched down on the tarmac of LAS. A small cheer went up when the plane came to a halt, which usually would have made her roll her eyes, except that they had been forced to taxi for nearly two hours in Oldtown, so the prospect of getting off this fucking plane had her clapping along with the rest. 

Arya was on edge and restless, three hours into what was supposed to be a four hour journey and only halfway done. The other passengers seemed to sense this and gave her a wide berth as she deplaned. 

She had never cared much for flying, even with as often as she did it these days. She wasn’t afraid of heights or small spaces the way Jon always pretended not to be, but planes always made her fidgety and tense. Especially this particular plane to this particular destination.

Arya fished her phone out of her bag when she cleared the gate and opened up the family group chat. As always it was bursting with messages. The majority of them were variations of ‘See you soon’ and ‘Have a safe flight’ in response to her nearly tearful text that the plane was at last taking off.  The newer ones were pretty standard for them, but no less entertaining.

**Sansa:** If anyone is interested, I’m selling my husband

**Rickon:** for how much?

**Sansa:** Two dragons or best offer

**Theon:** I said I was sorry!

**Robb:** What’s he done now?

**Sansa:** He’s just told our extremely young, extremely impressionable daughter that sea dragons and leviathans live in the Sunset Sea

**Theon:** I realize now that was a mistake

**Rickon:** i really didn’t think you could top telling ben about snarks in the haunted forest

**Jeyne:** Yes, thank you for that by the way

**Theon:** Don’t pretend like you lot didn’t go snark hunting growing up – I was there

**Robb:** We didn’t go when we were three! And Dad never told us we’d be eaten alive.

**Jon:** Has anyone seen Lyra’s swimsuit?

**Sansa:** I threw it in with the rest of the wash 

**Jon:** Cheers 

**Jon:** I say divorce him

**Bran:** Old Nan used to tell me much worse and I’m fine

**Arya:** That’s relative 

**Rickon:** that’s debatable

**Rickon:** awww bonding

**Arya:** Also hello I’m off the plane 

**Sansa:** xxxxxx

**Robb:** I’m not proud of this, but I will give you a hundred dragons if you turn up after bedtime.

**Arya:** Robert.

**Bran:** Robbifer

**Rickon:** robbathan 

**Jon:** Let the man speak

**Robb:** One day you three will have children, and you’ll understand. 

**Arya:** I’ll do my best 

**Sansa:** No! Don’t listen to him! 

**Theon:** NO! Cat won’t go to bed until you get here!

**Rickon:** aren’t you her whole ass parents

**Theon:** She’s the boss of this entire family and we all know it

**Robb:** Two hundred dragons

Arya wasn’t exactly hurting for money, but seven years of tuition and months spent on expeditions and digs with a stipend of five wooden nickels had taken its toll on her – privileged she always reminded herself – savings. She was seriously considering stopping at an airport bar and waiting out her nephew’s bedtime when Sansa messaged her privately.

**Sansa:** If you’re here by 7:45 you can shower and be in bed before he arrives

**Arya:** See you at 7:45

She pocketed her phone and walked into the bathroom. Without looking in the mirror she knew she was in a bit of a state. A quick glance confirmed her suspicion. Arya blinked back at her reflection, greasy brown hair pulled back into two short braids, tired grey eyes ringed with dark circles, and windburned skin taut over a long face with high cheekbones. 

She’d only gotten back from Vaes Dothrak a week before and the lack of rest was violently apparent. Arya’d always excelled at hiding her emotions, but her tiredness could be spotted from a mile away. She set about trying to recover with dry shampoo, face wash, and a small travel toothbrush. It wasn’t a warm shower and a good night’s rest, but it would do in a pinch.

Arya headed to baggage claim to collect her backpacking pack, which was too large to fit in the overhead bin. Usually she would have brought her smaller one, but it was still full of her fieldwork clothes and spare notebooks and she hadn’t had the energy to unpack before her flight. She threw the bag over her shoulder – ignoring the impressed little shrug from one of the workers – and headed to the ferry shuttle. 

She spent the thirty minute ferry ride from Lannisport to Feastfires pretending it was the waves that left her feeling nauseous. They chased the sunset, coming to port a few miles away from the beach house in the sleepy seaside town. The Starks had been gathering here at the beginning of summer her entire life, though Robb had been obliged to buy a larger home further away from the main street as the family grew.

Arya trekked along the side of the road, ignoring the two cars that slowed as they approached her. She knew they were likely looking to give her a lift to the nearest trailhead, since she looked like one of the backpackers that frequented the small, hilly peninsula. 

It was almost eight when Arya pressed her thumb against the doorbell. 

Chaos erupted inside. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of dogs barking excitedly and little feet running on wooden floors. Arya smiled as she watched an impatient little blob with a mass of bright orange hair stamp its feet through the frosted glass of the front door.

The little blob was joined by two others of similar size and three large dogs, and they all jumped around excitedly waiting for an adult. Arya braced herself as a much taller blob raced to the door.

Rickon threw open the door and launched himself at her, kicking off a series of high pitched giggles and loud barks.

“Arya!” Rickon yelled dramatically, doing his best to lift her up and spin her around.

Shaggydog and Summer barked and danced around his legs, while Ghost watched from a respectful distance.

“Put me down before you hurt yourself,” Arya ordered.

He set her down a little unsteadily, since her backpack had thrown off her center of gravity. She was nearly completely bowled over as soon as she’d straightened up, as her nieces and nephew threw themselves around her legs.

“Yaya!” 

“Yaya here!”

“Hello Yaya!” the tallest of the now no longer blobby children said.

Benjen was solemn for a six year old. He’d been solemn for his age all his life, with the long Stark face and dark Stark hair. His eyes were brown rather than grey, but other than that he could’ve convincingly passed as a miniature version of his grandfather.

“Ben! Lyra! Cat!” Arya dropped her bag off her back to allow for her to gather them up in her arms.

Little Cat was just as impatient for her attention as she’d been for the door to be opened, and wasted no time trying to squeeze herself around her cousins so she was closest to Arya. Lyra – all Stark toe to tip – employed a similar strategy, tilting her little chin back and letting out a long, sad cry.

The noise summoned the rest of the people in the house, and there was a second wave of commotion as Theon, Sansa, Jon, Ygritte, Robb, Jeyne, and Bran came into the room and rushed to greet her as well. 

Ygritte stepped into the mass of limbs and excited voices to pull Lyra – who had began crying in earnest – up onto her hip, balancing her out against the infant Duncan tightly ensconced in her sling. 

“Aye, aye,” she said soothingly, patting her back, “it’s bedtime isn’t it my wee pup?”

“We got to stay up late and wait for you,” Ben informed her proudly. “Papa said you read us a story too.”

“Well, that was thoughtful of Papa, wasn’t it?” Arya said dryly. She shot a look at Robb, who held up his hands in surrender.

“You’re always saying how much you miss them,” he said.

“Yaya read me story first,” Cat said, crossing her arms.

“Yaya can read you all a story in the big room,” Theon said reasonably. “But first we have to brush our teeth.”

“No!” Cat stamped her foot. “Want my _own_ story.”

“Is that how we ask nicely?” Sansa said, head tilted to one side with an eyebrow cocked. It was such a perfect impression of their mother that Arya felt briefly triggered. 

“That’s fucking spooky,” Rickon muttered.

“No,” Cat admitted a little sullenly.

“Yaya can read us a extra long story if we share one,” Ben said, leaning over to look his cousin in the eye. 

Cat frowned and looked from Arya, to her mother, to Ben, and back again. “’Kay,” she said. “I go brush teeth.” 

She led Ben up the stairs – both of them using their hands and knees to clamber up them – to the bathroom given over to the children, full of bath toys, stools, and various other gadgets designed to let the little ones operate the sink and toilet on their own.

“She’s worse than Rickon, I swear,” Theon muttered after they were out of earshot.

“She’s got the wolfblood,” Jon smirked, lifting Lyra out of Ygritte’s arms and kissing her on the cheek. “Just like you, my little love.”

Lyra sniffled and knuckled her eye. “Mm-hm,” she nodded. “Woofblood.”

Arya cooed at her little voice. The last time she’d seen Lyra she’d been barely babbling, and now her accent was as thick and Northern as Ygritte’s. Lyra heard the noise and extended her arms toward her. She stepped forward and kissed her niece on the forehead. 

“I brush teeth,” Lyra informed Jon, wriggling until he set her down and then bounding off.

Jon watched her go, smiling fondly as she hurried a bit unsteadily on the steps. Then he swept Arya up in a hug. He was quickly joined by Robb, Sansa, Rickon, and even Bran – who wheeled over to pinch her cheek. 

“You look…” Rickon trailed off, then shrugged with one hand. “You look.”

“Cheers,” Arya snorted.

“You’re so tan now,” Jon said, sounding a little dubious.

“You’re too skinny,” Robb said critically.

“You smell,” Bran added, smiling widely.

“Don’t listen to them,” Sansa said primly. “They’re just jealous.”

“Of what?” Robb and Rickon asked simultaneously. 

“Piss off,” Arya said. She extracted herself from her siblings’ embrace and greeted Theon, Jeyne, and Ygritte with a quick series of hugs.

“That Arya gets to spend her days out in the field bettering humanity while the two of you get further away from your prime years with every day,” Sansa said.

“I can’t believe Sansa murdered Rickon and Robb,” Bran said.

“I’m nineteen. In what way am I not in the prime of my life?” Rickon retorted.

“Sometimes I can still hear their voices,” Bran said.

Arya rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the newest and littlest Stark. “How is my perfect little nephew?” she cooed. 

“As docile as a lamb compared to the rest of them,” Ygritte said fondly, smoothing back Duncan’s dark wisps of hair. 

“Yaya! Yaya we ready!” Cat’s high, reedy voice called down the stairs.

“I want to hold him as soon as it won’t wake him up,” Arya said.

“O’course,” Ygritte said. 

“Yaya! Yaya come up!” Cat yelled, increasing in volume.

“I’m being summoned,” Arya said, blowing large, dramatic kisses at them all as she headed up the stairs.

*****

It took two picture books and one story about seeing a white lion sneak up on a heard of wild horses to satisfy the newest generation of Stark. When Arya returned downstairs her bags had been moved from the front room and her siblings – and associated spouses – were gathered out on the deck around the fire pit.

She joined them, relishing the feeling of the cool sea air against her bare shoulders. She’d discarded her flannel halfway through the second book, overheating from the pile of little limbs and heads resting on her stomach and chest.

“Yaya!” Rickon and Bran yelled dramatically before collapsing into giggles. 

Arya flipped them off and threw herself into the seat beside Rickon.

“Did they all go down?” Jon asked.

“Aye. I guessed on the beds, but,” she shrugged and snatched Jon’s beer out of his hands, “a bed’s a bed.”

“You are truly blessed among women,” Theon said. “The Mother come again.”

“My favorite sister,” Robb said. 

“My favorite _sibling_ ,” Sansa said, holding out a box of cheese crackers to her. “My favorite _person_.”

“You lot need to be careful, or they’re going to outnumber you,” Arya said, kicking up her feet onto Robb’s lap. 

“It already feels like they do,” Jeyne admitted. 

“When does the other wee one get here?” Ygritte asked. 

“They’ll be in late. Gendry,” Sansa flicked her gaze to Arya swiftly, as if to check she hadn’t started sobbing at the sound of his name, “had to work and then collect her from Bella’s.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Bran said, ignoring the huge groans from Arya and Rickon, “we could watch the little hellions one night so you lot can have a proper evening out.”

“We?” Robb asked, eyebrows raised.

“The non-parents. Arya’ll do most of the actual work,” Bran added.

“As long as we’re all on the same page about it,” Jon said. 

Sansa sucked on her teeth, but her concerns were overruled by the rest of the proper adults’ loud and enthusiastic thanks. Arya caught her sister’s eye and shook her head minutely, trying to signal to her that they could discuss her reservations later.

“I’ll bring him with us,” she said quietly as conversation shifted to a rousing discussion of the current football standings.

“It’s fine,” Arya whispered back. “Honestly, I’m fine.”

*****

It’s fine. We’re fine. I’m fine. Arya once read a short story about a woman who was forced to wear her lies on her skin. The bigger the lie, the larger the words. In the story, ‘love’ had been writ large on the woman’s chest. Arya would have ‘fine’ carved across hers.

She said it so frequently and so convincingly that none of them – save Sansa – had noticed her steady retreat into her own thoughts as they sat around the fire and chatted. Sansa watched her with concern as she withdrew and grew quiet. She felt her eyes on her back when she declared she was off to bed after Jon got a text updating them all on Gendry’s arrival time. 

Someone had set her bag on the bench at the foot of her bed and piled clean towels next to it. She pulled out her toiletry bag and headed to the bathroom down the hall – one empty of bath toys and little stools – to shower, making a concerted effort to avoid her reflection.

The cleaning left her feeling raw, her wounds fresh. This was exactly the fear that had stayed her tongue for years while she loved Gendry from down the hall. It was this exact scenario, because of course he could never be barred from holidays and family vacations. Arya had spent every holiday and vacation for the last two years with her head buried in her work and her feet on foreign soil, but it had finally caught up to her.

Ned had been so pleased when he swept into the tent and told her they would likely finish a week earlier than originally thought. The horses had needed less rest than expected, and using mats to flatten out the grass ahead of the statue had proved incredibly effective. 

Arya hadn’t known how to tell him that the whole sodding point of carting a replica statue of the Smith across the Dothraki sea to Vaes Dothrak – with no contact to the outside world aside from one satellite phone – had been to avoid both the invite and the week itself. Instead, she’d made all the right excited noises and swallowed her feelings before calling Sansa and telling her that as it happened she could come to – as Rickon called it – the Annual Stark Summer Bash. 

She’d been tempted to cancel or fake an illness dozens of times between the call and her flight from Oldtown to Lannisport. Arya had even invited Ned to come to Feastfires with her, but nothing could tear Ned Dayne away from gearing up for an academic mud-fight. Also –

“I have no desire to spend our second week back acting as a social buffer between you and Gendry, when I could get high and mindlessly watch TV for the first time in five months instead.”

It was a very good point. Still, Arya desperately wished there were more people in the house, even though she knew she would spot him in a crowd of three hundred. 

Sleep was painfully slow coming. Arya laid on her back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to let the exhaustion that permeated her bones carry her off into nothingness. Instead, the sliver of moonlight across the white wooden panelling of the ceiling dragged her back into a memory.

“I think he’s going to propose,” Arya said, four and a half years younger in the same bed, damp haired from a midnight run into the ocean. 

“Hm? Theon?” Gendry asked, face red with sunburn as it had been since their second hour in Feastfires.

“No, Pate the Pig Boy,” Arya reached over to punch his arm. Gendry barely reacted to the impact, aside from a soft chuckle. “Stupid.”

“What, like today?” Gendry asked. He caught her wrist before she could smack him again, and mimed at licking her hand.

“Disgusting,” Arya giggled, rolling over to pull her wrist out of his grasp. 

“My germs or the prospect of marriage?” he laughed.

“You, obviously,” she snapped, without putting anything behind it. She rolled over again and watched the moonlight dance across the ceiling. “I think I’d like to be married.”

“I thought you wanted to be the spinster aunt with a suspicious amount of money and a long line of dead ex-lovers,” Gendry said, frowning.

“I did,” she admitted. “Now I might want to get married.”

“That’s a change.” He left the conversation open for her to fill in the gaps.

“I know,” Arya said slowly. “I only – watching Robb and Jeyne with Ben, and Theon and Sansa holding hands on our walk… I think I would like that. For me. With someone I love.”

Gendry twisted his neck and head to look up at her. He was sitting at the foot of her bed with sandy feet and damp boxers, while she laid the wrong way on the bed in an oversized shirt that had either once been his or Jon’s. His eyes were stormy and his smile almost sad, like she’d said the wrong thing.

“You deserve all of that,” he said softly. “Everything.”

Arya smiled at him shyly, and tried very hard to pretend like she wasn’t imagining what it would be like to push herself slightly further down the bed and kiss him. He tilted his head a bit, almost as if he was picturing the same thing.

In her memory the moment was extended infinitely in time, one perpetual shared gaze that existed in that otherworldly hour after midnight, every night, for the rest of eternity.

Downstairs and in the present, the dogs were restless until she heard the sharp sound of Sansa telling them to settle. There was a scuffling and low voices and she hated herself for knowing it, but it was him. He and Sansa were talking quietly, and then they were walking up the stairs. 

“I set up a trundle bed for her in the big room,” Sansa said quietly, very mindful of their proximity to the sleeping children.

“Thanks,” he said so sincerely Arya wanted to vomit or throw her shoes at the door. “She’s been talking about this all month.”

“I imagine Bella is excited about a vacation as well,” Sansa said.

“You’d think, but I swear her and Margaery were ten seconds from changing their mind and bringing her along with them,” he chuckled. 

“Knowing…” Sansa’s voice trailed away as they moved further down the hall.

Arya let out a heavy breath and screwed her eyes shut, willing herself not to scream. It was worse, so much worse than she had anticipated. It was one thing to see him again, to hear him again. It was another thing entirely to know he’d continued his life without her.

She had been so certain of him. Of them. Maybe not as a romance, but as a relationship. The thing between them had felt deeper and more permanent than friendship. When she indulged herself and became melancholy and wistful she’d imagined that they were soulmates. For a long time she’d convinced herself that it was platonic, platonic soulmates and best friends, Arya and Gendry.

He had stomped into her life eighteen and sour, first as Jon’s semi-orphaned roommate, then as his best mate. At the time she was fourteen and incapable of understanding how anyone could be capable of stealing away the attention of her favorite person in the whole world. Worse, Jeyne Poole and Sansa had spent that first summer mooning over him, tittering and giggling at every word he said.

Worse still, he got on with Robb and Theon too. Suddenly her older brothers wouldn’t let her play with them whenever Gendry was about, too embarrassed to admit they still enjoyed hanging out with their little sister. She spent two straight summers angry at everything Gendry did or said, fuming to Bran while they sat in his room with the windows thrown wide so she could spy on them playing footie, while the two of them taught eight-year-old Rickon to cheat at cyvasse and cards. 

Then suddenly she was seventeen and her mum was dead, and Gendry was dragging her along with her brothers – plus Theon – to pub nights and parties, hissing in her hear to tell people she was eighteen and then to shut up. Later he told her he’d started bringing her along to keep her out of trouble. Seventeen was the year she’d stretched her father’s name as thin as it would go, sneaking out to graffiti her secondary school and getting into fights.

When she was eighteen he was standing behind Jon while they video chatted, listing all the reasons she should choose Oldtown University over White Harbor with a smile on his face. And when she was nineteen and glowering at Sansa’s monstrous boyfriend during their father’s funeral, Gendry was doing the same over her shoulder at the politicians who tried to talk to her.

Especially _his_ father.

At twenty-two she rolled her eyes and bit back a smile at the hand-made and over-glittered poster Gendry’d hung up in their living room, an exact replica of the one she’d made for him and Jon for their graduation. It was a foregone conclusion that she would be completing her PhD at Oldtown, since he was already working at a firm downtown – and if Gendry was staying, Arya was staying.

Except that hadn’t been true at all. 

Now here she was, curled around herself in the bed she’d once spent several moonlight hours whispering secrets to him in, crying so quietly she could almost pretend she wasn’t. 

*****

Grief was an odd thing. As quiet and isolated – and asleep – as Arya felt she was, someone in the house heard her, and disagreed.

“Yaya?” 

Little Cat’s half-asleep voice cut through the door as easily as an axe might. The doorknob rattled as she tried to open it. Arya was an aunt four times over though, and had locked the door to prevent early morning visitors.

Arya sniffled heavily and swiped at her eyes. She fumbled with her phone on the bedside table to check the time – nearly two in the morning.

“Yaya,” Cat called out again, adding her fist to the sound.

Arya stood and padded to the door on silent feet. She unlocked the door and opened it just as quietly, looking down at her niece. Cat blinked blearily up at her, rubbing her face with a loosely knuckled hand. Her red hair had pulled messily out of the two braids Sansa had set it in after her bath that afternoon.

“What’s wrong little bird?” Arya asked, kneeling down to rub her small back.

“You have night hare,” Cat said, leaning into her arms to rest her forehead against Arya’s collar bone. 

Arya smiled into her hair. She’d forgotten about Cat’s belief that nightmares were caused by monstrous rabbits made of black smoke that hopped into your head while you slept and gave you bad dreams. Sansa had been horrified the first time Cat explained to her what a night hare was, she and Theon equally convinced they’d managed to scar their daughter for life. But Cat didn’t seem to be bothered by the existence of night hares, merely accepting their function in the landscape of her sleep.

“No, sweet girl. I was only…” Arya trailed off, unsure how to phrase ‘I was only crying in my sleep’ in a way that wouldn’t upset the three-year-old. “Yes, a night hare came and gave me bad dreams.”

Cat bobbed her head, then pulled out of her embrace. She seized Arya’s fingers tightly in her hand and pulled her forward. “Come sleep with Dada and Mama,” she said insistently.

Reluctantly, Arya allowed herself to be dragged to her sister’s bedroom, swiping away spare tears with her free hand. She winced as the bedroom door creaked loudly as Cat’s small, determined body pushed it open. 

Sansa stirred immediately, lifting her sleep heavy head from her pillow and squinting into the darkness. 

“Cat?” she asked, voice sweet and motherly. 

“Mama, Yaya have a night hare,” she pulled Arya forward with her to the edge of the bed. “We sleep in good dreams bed.” 

Cat scrambled up onto the bed with one hand still clutching Arya’s. She continued to clutch it as she clambered over Sansa to wriggle in-between her and Theon. Arya was yanked forward into the edge of the bed before she managed to gently pry her niece’s fingers loose.

“Sorry,” Arya whispered to Sansa, “she heard me…”

She trailed off again, because there was no way to say ‘she heard me crying’ in a way that wouldn’t worry her sister.

Sansa shook her head, eyes already closed again. “We went with the king-bed for a reason,” she patted the space between her and Cat. “Plenty of room.”

Arya stood beside the bed uncertainly, watching Cat push on her father’s back to create more space for her. Satisfied that Theon had moved over far enough, Cat patted the space she created in an impressive impersonation of her mother. She even had her face arranged in the same gentle expression.

“Come on, Yaya,” Theon mumbled into his pillow. He reached behind him to pat the bed as well, but ended up gently palming his daughter’s face. “No bad dreams in Dada and Mama’s bed.”

Her heart twisted heavily and her eyes overflowed again. She sniffed and climbed over Sansa, who pulled down the duvet so Arya and Cat could slip under the covers. Cat snuggled into her chest, her small huffs growing slower and more even as she slid into sleep. Behind her, Sansa gently scratched circles over Arya’s back.

It was some sort of ancient magic passed down to each parent, because Arya had a distinct memory of their own mother doing the same thing to put her to sleep at Cat’s age. She shut her eyes, meaning to stay there only briefly and sneak back to her own room when Cat was fully asleep. 

When she opened her eyes it was morning.

Arya rubbed the sleep out of the corners of her eyes and blinked around. The room was dimly lit by the grey light of early morning. In front of her Cat and Theon wore identical sleeping expressions, their mouths wide open with little identical spots of drool on the pillow they shared. Sansa was on her other side, situated in a very similar position to the one Arya had woken up in – on her side with one leg pulled up and one arm underneath her pillow. 

Arya smiled and slid up to seating as carefully as she could. The three of them were still dead to the world when she finally made her way off the bed and out the door. 

She stalked quietly to her room and changed into a pair of running shorts and a sports bra. As an after thought she grabbed a shirt at random out of her bag and threw it on. It was foggy enough outside to drop the temperature several degrees. Arya pulled on her trainers at the front door and headed out for a run.

The route she took was unfamiliar, but running to clear her head was not. 

Her chest heaved far earlier into the run than she’d expected. For all the back-breaking work she’d done in the Dothraki sea, she could count on one hand the number of mornings she’d had free to go for a run. By the second mile Arya was thanking the gods she hadn’t tried to run on the beach, and by the third mile she was calculating the odds that she could convince Rickon to come pick her up.

They were extremely low, so she turned back. 

Arya slowed to a walk for the last mile, arms over her head and a stitch burning in her side. Her shirt clung to her back and she could tell from how warm her face was that it had to be bright red.

Rickon was sitting at the kitchen table with Ben, Cat, Lyra, and a little girl with wild black curls and dark blue eyes Arya didn’t recognize. They had five identical plastic bowls of yogurt topped with sloppily chopped strawberries in front of them. The children were happily tucking into them while Rickon’s head was leaden in his hand, eyes drooping even as they exclaimed happily at her appearance.

“Morning!” Cat chimed.

“Yaya!” Lyra waved her spoon around.

“Hmpf,” Rickon grunted, mouth and eyes closed.

“Good morning, Yaya,” Ben said brightly. He pointed at the newcomer sitting beside him. “This is Barra. She’s Uncle Gendy’s sister like how you’re Papa’s sister.”

“Hi,” Barra said a little quietly. 

“Hello,” Arya walked over and crouched down so they were at eye level, “I’m Yaya.”

Barra accepted her hand carefully, as if unsure what she was supposed to do or say in response. 

“Do you know Uncle Gendy?” Ben asked. 

Arya let out a heavy breath. “I do,” she said. “We went to school together a long time ago.”

“He’s my biggest brother,” Barra said quickly. 

“Lyra has a brother,” Cat said, looking up from her bowl. She considered Barra carefully. “I don’t have any,” she added.

“Okay,” Barra said, and went back to eating. 

Arya stood and walked to sit beside Rickon, ruffling his hair. “How did you sleep?” she asked him while the children chatted among themselves. 

“Hmpf,” Rickon said again. “They’ve got me on the foldout. Ben woke me up at six-thirty with the melodica I got him for Candlenights, and then came back with the rest of them to get me out of bed.”

“A victim of your own hubris,” she laughed.

Rickon was saved then energy of a response by Theon’s arrival in the kitchen. “Morning everyone,” he smiled, as bright eyed and awake as the children, “what’s for breakfast?”

“Morning Uncle Theon,” Ben and Lyra chorused.

“Morning Dada,” Cat said.

“Morning,” Barra said with much more certainty than she’d addressed Arya. “We’re having yogurt and berries.”

“That sounds good,” Theon said, nodding appreciatively. 

The ingredients for their simple breakfast were still spread across the kitchen island. Theon set about making himself a bowl, then reached up and grabbed a large tub of instant hot-chocolate and a reusable ziplock bag of brightly colored marshmallows from an upper cabinet. 

“Yaya, you come in the ocean today? With us?” Cat asked, pausing with her spoon halfway to her mouth.

“Aye, of course,” she said. Arya reached over and stole Rickon’s untouched bowl of yogurt to great giggles from the rest of the people seated at the table.

“Papa said one time you and Uncle Theon swam all the way to the yellow buoy,” Ben reported.

“We did,” Theon said. 

“Mum says you get…” Ben screwed his face up to remember, “comp-a-tive.”

“Competitive,” Arya corrected gently. “As I recall, that was to impress Sansa.”

“Like everything I do,” Theon said, spinning the container of hot-chocolate in his hands. 

“We have coco, Dada?” Cat asked, catching sight of the movement.

“After breakfast,” Theon nodded. “Because you did a very good job being kind and helping Yaya feel better last night.” 

Arya tilted her head in silent inquiry.

“We have hot-chocolate after a night hare visits,” he said, filling a small pot with milk and warming it on the stove. “It makes everyone feel better.”

“With special ’mallows,” Cat added, taking her last bite with a flourish. 

“Can we have coco too, please?” Ben asked.

“Of course,” Theon said easily. “We’re all helping Yaya feel better, so we all get coco.”

The four tiny voices cheered loudly, echoed by another grunt from Rickon. Arya ruffled her brother’s hair again.

“It’s hard to be the favorite uncle,” she said sympathetically. 

“How do they say no to them?” Rickon asked, sounding pained. “I don’t think I have what it takes to be a parent.”

“I don’t know if they really do say no to them,” Arya said. “I let Cat drag me into Sansa’s room last night at two in the morning, and they let me climb into bed with them because she said so.”

“I need a nap,” Rickon grumbled, letting his head fall onto the table.

Arya patted his back and then stood to help Theon distribute the mugs of hot-chocolate.

*****

It was nearly nine by the time Bran rolled in from his bedroom on the first floor. By then Sansa, Jeyne, Robb, and Ygritte – with baby Duncan wrapped around her chest – had come downstairs and were currently discussing with Theon the best way to wake up Jon.

“Technically he’s not the last awake,” Bran said, snatching Rickon’s untouched mug of hot-chocolate from beside his head. 

Rickon had fallen asleep at the table, and slept through the departure of the children for the family room as well as Arya sticking a variety of post-it notes with three syllable dirty words – so Ben and Barra couldn’t read them – to his back.

“Rickon woke up and fed our bairns,” Ygritte said. “Whereas my husband pretended to sleep through wee Duncan’s feeding this morning.”

“It’s him or Gendry,” Jeyne nodded. 

“Gen didn’t get in until past midnight,” Sansa said. When that failed to sway anyone she added, “I think if it’s him we go with the ice bucket. Jon we can do the airhorn to.”

Summer lifted his head from where it rested on Bran’s lap and Shaggydog rolled to his feet.

“Ghost’s up,” Bran observed. 

“It could be either of them,” Robb said. 

“Oh what a good boy,” Gendry’s voice floated down the stairs, accompanied by a faint thump of a large tail against a wall.

“I get to blow the airhorn,” Ygritte said, grinning madly. 

Anxiety gripped Arya’s heart fifty times harder than Cat had clutched her fingers this morning. Desperately she sought out Sansa, ready to tell her that actually, she couldn’t do this and could she nip upstairs and please, please, please tell him to leave?

Instead, her gaze met Theon’s kind eyes. He lifted an extra mug of coco and dumped an entire mini-bottle of coffee liqueur into it, then tilted his head toward the back deck. Arya nodded and extracted herself carefully, creeping out of the kitchen under the cover of Sansa and Ygritte searching for the hidden airhorn.

Arya curled up on one of the sun chairs and accepted the mug of spiked coco gratefully.

“How’re you doing?” Theon asked, taking a seat at the end of the sun chair. 

What he really meant was, “How are you handling the arrival of Gendry Waters – your one time best friend who you confessed your love to while begging him to come with you to Braavos, who politely rejected you, and who moved out from your shared apartment with only a sterilized email informing you he wouldn’t be renewing the his lease – knowing you’ll be forced to speak to him at least once this week?”

“I’m fine,” Arya said.

What she meant was a single unending shriek made of equal parts loss, embarrassment, and anger that would echo down the beach and out across the Sunset Sea until it was swallowed up by a sea dragon.

At least, she reminded herself as she did every time she thought of that email, Gendry had paid out his portion of the rent through her return.

“When was the last time you… spoke to each other?” Theon asked carefully.

Arya made a pained face. _A miserable, wet Monday morning two years, three weeks, and five days ago_.

“I don’t remember,” she lied. 

As much as Theon was her brother-in-law and had once been fostered in her home, he was one of Gendry’s best mates. She was reluctant to say anything to him that would put him in an awkward spot. Like ‘I would rather claw out my eyes than have to look him in the face’ or ‘I’m terrified I’ll end up telling the great idiot I love him all over again if I hear him say my name’.

“Sans and I have a signal when we go to her work dinners,” Theon said. “She tugs on her ear when she needs help escaping a conversation. We could make one for you.”

Arya laughed lightly. “That’s a good idea,” she admitted.

“Just tap your nose and I’ll drag him off to talk about footie or lawn politics,” he said.

Theon looked like he wanted to add something, maybe reassure her that he and Sansa were there for her, or promise that he still hadn’t told Jon or Robb what had happened between them. He was interrupted by a persistent rapping on the glass door. Cat had her nose pressed against the glass, fogging it with each breath.

“Mama says come inside!” she shouted, misunderstanding the effect the door had on her volume.

Theon stood and patted her on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Arya said sincerely, lifting the mug.

“Of course,” Theon said, tapping his nose before sliding open the door. “Let’s go!” he exclaimed in a goofy imitation of his own voice.

Arya turned her attention to the shore, the waves slowly becoming visible as the fog began to burn off. The sweat on her back and her neck had cooled completely, and the gentle sea breeze cut a chill through her. 

She sipped aggressively at the spiked coco, willing it to make her warm enough to stay outside or drunk enough to deal with going inside. It didn’t warm her, but as it happened after having nothing more alcoholic than fermented mare’s milk for five months – and even that only twice – the tiny bottle of coffee liqueur was enough to leave her feeling pleasantly fuzzy.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It _had_ been two years.

She’d broken two bones – her left big toe and right wrist – and had five different hairstyles since the last time they’d spoken. Lyra had been born, started smiling, and developed her own little personality since the last time she’d heard him say her name. She’d dated and had one night stands – some that she thought of him during and some that made her forget what she’d ever seen in him – since she’d told him she loved him. 

He’d moved to Storm’s End and started working at a firm focusing on sustainable architecture – according to Lommy – and found another half-sister more than two decades younger than himself. They had new inside jokes and new secrets that they shared with new people.

A few more years and biologically speaking they’d be different people, the cells that had known the feeling of the other’s skin, of her legs in his lap, of his chin on the top of her head dead and gone, replaced by brand new Gendry and Arya building blocks.

All Arya really had to do was greet him once. After that it would be a matter of nods and swift exits from rooms with fewer than four people to separate them, until her flight back to Oldtown and return to her research. 

Maybe she would finally get around to sleeping with Ned, if he’d have her. 

She and Ned could get married and adopt babies who would stomp their feet and dig in the dirt, and bring them to Feastfires at the beginning of every summer. They could bring them along on expeditions, let them grow up barefoot under the Essosi sky or bundled up against the cold beyond the Wall. 

And if the children she imagined for them always had black hair and dark blue eyes, that was only because she’d gotten stuck on that idea somewhere along the way. 

Arya rose easily to her feet. If nothing else, she needed to shower again and change. 

She walked through the sliding glass door with straight shoulders. The kitchen was empty save a still passed out Rickon and a tired looking Shaggydog, who was lying stretched out on the cool tile floor. Lyra and Cat had a habit of riding him that he indulged endlessly, but it did tire him out. 

She bent down to scratch behind his ears, lifting his massive head into her lap. Shaggydog wriggled his hips until he had fully rolled onto his back, nuzzling her hand in silent request for belly-rubs. Arya obliged.

She heard a small gasp from the door leading into the family room. Arya looked up and met the gaze of the image of her imagined daughter. Barra’s eyes that glittered as she watched Shaggydog wiggle his hips with happiness. 

“Big doggy,” she whispered to herself.

Arya scratched Shaggydog’s stomach in the spot that always made him kick his hind leg and the little girl giggled. “He’s part direwolf,” Arya said. “Do you know what direwolves are?”

She shook her head, making the loose curls around her face bounce. 

“They’re very big wolves, some get as big as horses. They live beyond the Wall, way up North,” she said. “But he’s not all direwolf so he’s not as big.”

She made a sound of amazement, blue eyes dancing almost in time with her feet, which were tapping with excitement.

“His name is Shaggydog, do you want to pet him?” Arya asked.

She furrowed her brow and Arya had to stifle a gasp at how much the expression resembled Gendry. It was the face he made when considering the hypothetical question she posed him when they sat outside on their balcony and smoked.

“No,” she said finally. “But I can watch.” She settled herself crosslegged on the floor, tapping her toes with her fingers.

“Who’s the best boy in all the North?” Arya cooed at Shaggydog, squishing his face in her hands. Shaggydog thumped his tail against the ground and reached up to lick her face.

She and the little girl laughed.

“How come I don’t know you?” Barra asked, as if she’d only just remembered.

Arya smiled, feeling melancholy. “I usually work very far away,” she said. “But everyone here is my family too. Just like you.” 

“Where’d you go?” Barra asked. “My sister is far away too so she’s not here.”

“Last year I was way, way south to the Isle of Women in the Summer Isles. And the year before that I was way beyond the Wall,” Arya said. 

“With direwolves?” Barra asked.

Arya nodded. “We saw some, but they weren’t friendly like Shaggy.”

“How come you go far away?” Barra asked.

_Because your brother broke my heart, and it’s taken longer than I expected to put it back together again._

“My job is to study how people used to live. I travel all over,” Arya explained.

Barra nodded slowly. “Do you go in planes? I was on a plane.”

“Planes, trains, and automobiles,” Arya laughed. “And boats.”

“My sister is on a boat with Margie,” Barra informed her. 

Arya let out a bark of laughter at the idea of anyone calling Margaery Tyrell, Westeros’s most elegant and capable political consultant, _Margie_.

Rickon snorted loudly and lifted his head from the table, startled by her laugh. “Wha’s happening?” he asked, looking around through squinted eyes.

“Good morning,” Arya drawled. “Have a nice nap?”

Rickon opened his mouth and spun around, then shut it when he saw Barra sitting on the threshold between the kitchen and family room.

“Hi Barra,” Ben said, jogging up to her from the hallway. “Do you want to come play Legos?”

“Oh shit, Legos,” Rickon said enthusiastically.

Barra and Ben widened their eyes. “You’re not supposed to say bad words,” Ben said, his face pinched and voice serious.

“Sorry,” Rickon said sheepishly. “I got excited.”

Arya rolled her eyes at him, but said nothing.

“It’s okay, we won’t tell,” Barra promised.

“You can come play Legos too,” Ben said, then added, “and Yaya.”

“Brilliant,” Rickon said. “Let’s go.”

Arya followed their little parade up the stairs. The kids’ bedroom had been listed on the floor-plan as a playroom, which Sansa had said was code for ‘odd shaped room on the second floor with no closet’. One of its double doors was swung wide, so Cat and Lyra spotted her as soon as she reached the top of the stairs. 

“Yaya!” Cat yelled. “We play Legos and then we get dressed for the ocean!”

“Look!” Lyra waved around a tall stack of Legos.

“Oh wow,” Arya said enthusiastically. “The ocean? And what a tall tower! You’re both very talented little ladies.”

She strode through the door and looked over the play table laden with Legos and felt her heart stop, break, and fall to the floor. Gendry was sitting between Lyra and Barra, holding out a handful of green Legos to Ben on Barra’s other side.

He looked – 

Had he always been this handsome? His shoulders were broad, his arms well muscled. His thicket of black hair was shorter, his short beard neater than he’d worn it two years ago. His clothing was nicer, an upgrade from thrift store finds and ten dollar department store shirts. Now he wore black joggers and a dark green shirt that looked like they’d been crafted specifically for his body. 

But the tip of the tattoo Meera’d given him during her apprenticeship still poked out above his shirt collar. The way he sat with one knee up, always looking too big for the space was the same. The way his eyes went soft and his lips quirked up when he saw her walk into the room was the same. The way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled was the same.

The sight of him still made Arya feel like she’d arrived home after a long day out. Only now it also made her feel terribly, terribly alone. 

“Hi,” he breathed. Clearly, Gendry hadn’t been expecting their reunion to happen across a table heaped with Legos either. 

“Oh. Hi. I – I didn’t realize you were up here,” she said.

“Love a bit of Lego,” he shrugged, looking utterly mystified by her presence.

“Right,” Arya said. “Right.”

“Will you sit next to me?” Ben asked her hopefully.

“I can’t,” Arya said, and she didn’t think she’d ever said anything truer in her entire life. “I need to,” she waved her arms to indicate she needed to flee immediately, “shower and get ready for the beach.” 

She was out of the room before anyone else had the chance to speak. 

*****

Arya was sweating in her sundress. Even as she arched her back and laid her neck bare to the sun she could feel beads of sweat moving between her breasts and down the back of her knees. The linen was wrinkling and sticking to her uncomfortably and she wanted desperately to take it off, but was paralyzed by indecision. 

She had always been partial to two-piece swimsuits. It had been a while since she had time to relax on the beach so she’d bought a new one – a knotted tropical print bikini top with black bottoms – without putting much thought into it. It wasn’t until she was changing in her room after her panic shower that she realized the problem with the low waisted bottoms. 

Her tan lines were severe and many. Naked it could almost look like she was wearing a shirt, shorts, tall socks, and a wristwatch. That wasn’t the problem, although it did look a bit ridiculous. The issue was the three angry red scars on her abdomen that slashed violently across her pale skin. 

Her siblings had heard about the incident, of course. Jon had even stormed into Braavos and sat vigil by her hospital bed, then her hotel bed for the entirety of her recovery. But outside of helping her change in the beginning days, he hadn’t seen the damage done to her.

None of them had. She was worried about scaring her nieces and nephew, worried about breaking Sansa’s heart, worried that Rickon would rage and storm off. 

Most of all she was worried about the look of pity on Gendry’s face as he saw the position of the scars and realized what, exactly, Arya had lost.

“It _will_ be okay,” Bran said quietly beside her. He was seated in a lawn chair beside her, under the cover of a large beach umbrella. 

“They look… violent,” Arya mumbled. 

“And my legs look atrophied and small,” Bran scooped up one leg to illustrate his point, “I’m not sitting here in pants.”

“It’s right annoying how smart you turned out,” she said, but she was smiling.

“I know, Robb tells me all the time,” he replied with his own smile. “You definitely need sunblock though. How is it you lived outside for five months and stayed that pale?”

“You look like an animated heart tree,” she shot back.

“Yes, but that’s intentional,” he said.

Arya rolled her eyes, but sat up on her towel and pulled her sundress over her head. Bran mimed being blinded by the reflection off of her stomach, waving his eyes over his face and dramatically calling for Rickon to toss him his sunglasses. 

“Gods, you’re paler than him,” Rickon said, tossing them over. 

“I won’t be mocked by you two louts,” she said, standing to apply the spray on sunblock to the patches of skin that hadn’t tanned. 

When she was satisfied that she wasn’t exposed to sunburn, Arya walked toward the water’s edge where Theon, Barra, and Cat were playing at a game that involved running forward as the water receded and running screaming up the beach as the next wave broke. 

Ben was digging a hole with Gendry and Robb a few yards away, while Jeyne shouted encouragements from her beach chair between pages of her book. Sansa and Ygritte were carefully covered beneath two different umbrellas chatting quietly. Jon slept between them with Lyra passed out on his chest.

Everyone looked up as Arya left the clump of towels and umbrellas, and she felt the atmosphere of their pleasant afternoon in the sun shift as all of them noticed the scars at once. 

“Seven fucking hells,” Rickon said. 

The combination of shift in atmosphere and Rickon’s words jolted Jon awake, which woke Lyra up as well. She immediately began fussing and Jon automatically moved to soothe her even as he glared at Arya’s scars, as if the woman who’d given them to her could feel it.

Ygritte sucked on her teeth and dropped a hand down to Jon’s shoulder. She looked angry enough to spit. Sansa had a faraway look on her face, running a fingertip along the small scar on her chin Joffery had given her a lifetime ago.

Between the water and the island of umbrellas and towels, Robb looked up from helping Ben dig his hole. His face hardened and he flexed one hand, before hopping out of the hole and making to walk over to her.

Jeyne saved it. She pulled three different sea-life themed little life vests from beneath her chair and waltzed over to Arya easily. 

“Those are healing well,” she said definitively, looking pointedly at Arya when her tone was directed to Robb.

“I think they complement my tan lines,” Arya said, forcing her voice to be happy and upbeat. 

“They certainly distract from them a bit,” Jeyne said. 

Ben bobbed his head between his mum, his dad, and his aunt, too little to understand what was wrong, but old enough to know that something was. Behind him, Gendry had turned away from Arya completely, staring straight down with his muscles tensed tightly.

Jeyne smiled at her son and held up one of the life vests. “Do you want to come swimming with Mum and Yaya?” she asked brightly.

Ben nodded and Robb – much more relaxed for the proximity to his wife and son – scooped him up out of the hole. Jeyne slipped the life vest over his shoulders and buckled it up. Ben reached out for their hands and they swung him between them down to the water. 

Theon inhaled sharply when he saw the angry marks on her abdomen, but then directed Cat and Barra’s attention to the life vests. They helped the girls into their life vests and then Theon promptly seized Cat and ran into the waves, tossing her into the water while she let out a sound of pure joy.

Everything went back to golden sunshine on warm sea waters over the course of the next two hours, the afternoon spent splashing in the water and giggling with reckless abandon. Eventually everyone aside from Ygritte and Bran – and baby Duncan – came to float in the warm waters of the Sunset Sea. Sometime after Gendry first tossed Ben into the water – which lead Cat to discover that if she smiled prettily enough she could get any of the adults to do the same for her – Arya returned to their towel city.

She stretched out like a cat on her towel, letting the sun dry the water off her skin. The droplets left behind little circles of salt as they dried, which cracked deliciously when she flexed her muscles. 

Just as she was on the brink of falling asleep, cool droplets of water trickled over her stomach. Arya opened her eyes to see Lyra crouching over her, hair damp and smiling sweetly down at her. Gently she lowered her head to kiss Arya’s scars one by one.

“All better!” she said happily, before sitting clumsily beside Arya on her towel.

“All better,” Arya echoed, rubbing Lyra’s back. “Thank you sweetling.” 

She blinked around and did her best not to let her face fall as she saw that only Jon and Gendry were left. She must’ve fallen asleep and missed everyone’s departure. Jon tilted his head down at them and smiled fondly as Lyra gave a contented little sigh and rested her head on Arya’s ribcage.

“How was the Dothraki sea?” Jon asked, adjusting the position of the umbrella so that Lyra was out of the sun. “Are you a proper horse lord now?”

“Beautiful. You wouldn’t believe how green everything was,” she replied, ignoring the part of her that was terrified to share anything with Gendry. “I won’t miss rationing water and scanning for wild dogs every time I have to take a piss, but it was absolutely brilliant. I was right about the method used to transport the statues to Vaes Dothrak – we’ve got oral histories _and_ physical evidence.”

“Bet Ned loved that,” Jon said. He was no stranger to Arya’s research fellow, who while a little spacey was nearly as cutthroat as she was. 

“He’s back at Oldtown getting ready for an academic dogfight,” she said happily. “I think I’ll mail a copy of the journal to Maester Pycelle.” 

“Still going after him, then?” Gendry asked with wry amusement. 

Jon laughed, blissfully unaware of the existential dilemma Arya found herself in. She didn’t know if she had it in her to talk with Gendry like they used to do, but she _knew_ she didn’t have it in her not to shit talk Maester Pycelle given the opportunity.

“He’s still making wild claims about ancient cultures of color based on basic misunderstanding of their language, while refusing to ask them about their history,” Arya said. “It took me half a day to disprove his theories about water transport. All I had to do was wave down a passing khalasar and ask for help.”

“I look forward to reading another evisceration of Maester Pycelle,” Jon said. 

“I’ll send you an advance copy,” Arya said.

“Perfect,” Jon said. “It’ll give Gendry a break at tracking them down.”

“What?” Arya asked dumbly.

Gendry looked up from the book he was reading sharply. Jon had to be the thickest person on the planet to not notice the two of them willing him to stop talking for different reasons.

“Took him ages to find the last one – about the First Men at the God’s Eye,” Jon said. “Then we had to muddle through it… I’m just realizing we pirated your article. Sorry about that.”

“I only send them to Jon,” Gendry said quickly. Then he shrugged slowly, “And Bella.” 

Arya couldn’t even look at his face. Her last article had come out just before she’d left for Essos, the result of four months of excavation and primitive structure building on the Isle of Faces. And Gendry had tracked down. And read it. He’d read it and sent it to his sister and Jon.

“We bought the one before that,” Jon said hastily, continuing to misread the situation. “I’ve said it before, but you’re a brilliant writer. It feels like we’re right there with you.”

“Nothing worse than dry academic writing,” Arya said, not really listening to what she was saying. “Ned always says if you’re not going to call someone out in the abstract there’s no point.”

Jon laughed in the disconnected way people did when they didn’t quite understand the joke, and knew clarification wouldn’t help. He changed the subject to the renovations he and Ygritte were planning for their house. It barely registered.

Her mind was a broken record, scratching over the same thought again and again. 

He read her journal articles. He’d read multiple of her journal articles and sent them to his sister. He searched them out and read them. And then he sent them to Bella for her to read.

Arya had been there the day they met. It had been her second time visiting Jon on her own, sixteen and defiant and still a little pissed at Gendry for stealing him away from her. On the second night of her visit he’d stormed into the apartment, hair standing on end and eyes panicky.

“I have another sister,” he said to Jon, as if that was meant to mean anything. “She wants to meet up.”

“Fuck,” Jon said mildly. “When?”

“Today. Tonight,” Gendry ran a hand through his hair, “she wants to meet for dinner.”

“Shit,” Jon said, mimicking Gendry’s movement. “Well… don’t take her to that Pentoshi place.”

“Would – d’you think you could come?” Gendry asked quietly, looking lost and overwhelmed.

Jon nodded slowly. “If Arya’s alright with it,” he said, shooting her a look that made it clear she had to say yes.

Gendry blinked at her as if noticing she was sitting next to Jon on the couch for the first time. The shock on his face nearly had her crossing her arms and refusing to go – she’d been there the whole day, _apparently_ without him noticing – but he looked so scared as she scowled that Arya had swallowed her pride and agreed.

Bella had been a force of nature, brash and vivacious and giggly. If they hadn’t looked like twins Arya would never have said that the bubbly Bella was related to surly, sour Gendry. She delighted over Arya’s haircut and sent her home with a long list of recommendations for hair products and makeup. 

Jon had mocked her mercilessly the next day, asking Arya if she was really going to start wearing makeup and dresses, and acting like a girl. The usually good-natured ribbing crossed a line when he scoffed in response to her insistence she’d worn makeup before.

“Why?” Jon asked. “It’s not like you’re Sansa.”

Arya had burst into angry, teenaged tears that left her hot with shame. She slammed the door to Jon’s bedroom so hard the walls of the entire apartment rattled. Arya collapsed against the door and angrily deleted the list of makeup brands off of her phone.

“You’re being a dick,” Gendry snapped at Jon in the living room. 

Later, after she heard Jon leave for class she emerged from his bedroom. Gendry was reading on the couch, his brown furrowed and face twisted into a frown. He barely acknowledged her reappearance, even when she sat at the other end of the couch and pulled out her homework. It wasn’t until she’d been tapping a pen against her book for a few minutes that he spoke.

“I can help you with that, if you like,” he muttered, not looking up. “Maths, right?”

“I don’t need help,” Arya said quickly. 

Gendry looked up from his textbook to read hers. “Advanced calculous,” he read.

“I’m good with figures,” she snapped.

“Alright,” he said and turned his attention back to his textbook. 

They worked in silence for nearly an hour before Gendry spoke again. “Thanks for agreeing to come to dinner,” he said. 

Arya shrugged. “How come you didn’t meet her until now?” she asked.

“Didn’t know about her,” he said shortly. He shut his book and stood. 

Arya rolled her eyes, annoyed with stupid Gendry and his stupid secrets in his stupid living room that he shared with her stupid brother. She ignored him as he gathered his books and headed out the door. 

“Jon was a dick,” he said right before leaving the apartment. “If Bella thinks you’d look nice with,” he gestured at his face, “whatever, she’s probably right. She’d know better than him, anyway.” 

It was a throwaway line – she’d mentioned it much later and he hadn’t even remembered saying it – but it had been the origin point of her crush on him. The crush had been amorphous and unknowable until her first year of university, when Gendry told some man at the bar she was his sister – which he’d done half a dozen times before – to stop him flirting with her. 

He and Jon had thought she was pissed off at them when she stormed to the bathroom afterward. The reality was that Arya had finally understood why she hated it so much when Gendry said he was her brother, and needed to hide until he went back to his apartment.

“I’m going to head in,” Arya said abruptly, feeling much the same as she had that night in the bathroom.

She passed the rest of the day running her fingers through her feelings, turning her thoughts over in her hands to examine every inch of them. It was painfully obvious to everyone that she was distracted. Ben went so far as to quietly ask her to pay attention before starting a story about something he had learned in school. 

The hardest part was that Gendry seemed to be perpetually _watching_ her. He watched her dole out forehead kisses to all of her nieces and nephews. He watched her argue with Jon about how long to grill the prawns. He watched her show Cat how to slip beets to the dogs under the table. He watched her laugh with Sansa at Robb’s horror upon discovering Jon had brought Taboo, a game that historically left Jeyne red faced and baffled at ‘ever having married a complete candlestick like him’. 

Gendry watched her, and worse he watched her with a small smile on his face and bright eyes. 

And since Gendry kept watching her, she kept catching his eye. It hurt her heart the first six times it happened, a physical blow that left her breathing deeply. But gradually she remembered their prolific range of non-verbal communication, and once she remembered it was nothing to slip back into it. 

“More beets please!” Cat sang out, half giggling as a very suspicious Theon piled more onto her plate.

Gendry tilted his head at her. _You’re going to get caught_.

Arya rolled her eyes and palmed one of Cat’s slices of beet. _No I’m not_. She slipped it to Shaggydog under the table with one eyebrow raised. _See?_

“I can do a cartwheel,” Jon claimed loudly in response to something Theon had said to him.

Arya and Gendry pulled identical faces. _No he absolutely cannot_.

“No harm’s _ever_ come from a family bonfire on the beach,” Rickon said passionately to Sansa. “It’s tradition!”

Gendry raised both his eyebrows and smirked at her. _Still haven’t told them?_

Once, nearly five years ago Arya had accidentally singed the sleeve Sansa’s cardigan, and in a tipsy effort to conceal the damage had thrown it on the fire when none one was looking. The resulting smell and smoke had driven them inside, with Robb muttering about damp wood and lighter fluid.

Arya knitted her eyebrows together and pursed her lips. _Don’t you dare_.

Gendry wiggled his eyebrows and smirked. It felt like coming home to an empty house, comforting but lonely.

*****

Sleep danced out of her grasp again that night. With a heavy sigh Arya slipped downstairs for a glass of water and a smoke. She was under strict instruction – along with Rickon and Bran – that the children were never to catch them smoking weed, but past midnight on the back deck seemed like an unlikely place to be caught out unawares by them.

She walked through the kitchen with the ease born of walking through it in the dark a hundred times before, grabbing a glass and filling it with tap water before sliding open the back door.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Gendry hissed.

Arya started. “Holy shit – _what_ are you doing out here?” she gasped. 

He was laying out on one of the sun chairs, shirtless and in dark grey sweatpants with a proper cigarette dangling from his mouth. She shut her eyes in silent entreaty to the gods.

Gendry could’ve gotten massively fat like his father, or become weirdly into CrossFit and bulked out to the grotesque proportions. That would have been nice and manageable for her. Instead, the last two years had only slightly hardened the muscle that had existed before, leaving him just as devastatingly handsome. If not more. The single line tattoo of a bull’s head over his heart – an inside joke with his mum that had accidentally become one of theirs – still called out to be traced with a finger.

“Same as you,” Gendry said a little harshly. He dragged his eyes over her, and she was reminded that she only wore an oversized t-shirt and underwear. 

He’d seen her in less before – today in fact – but it had been years since they’d sat up at late at night, talking when they’d already decided to go to bed. 

Arya desperately wanted to smoke, so she shrugged and sat on the chair furthest from him. She lit the joint and exhaled as she stretched out. She wrinkled her nose as she smelled Gendry light his cigarette. She hadn’t known he started smoking again.

“I wish you’d talk to me,” Gendry said, so quietly it might have been a particularly loud thought.

Arya wished he hadn’t abandoned their apartment while she was abroad, but all the wishing in the world wouldn’t change that. All of her plants had died, even the beautiful snake plant she’d kept alive since her dorm days. He killed all of her plants because he couldn’t bare to be in their home after hearing that she loved him, and she wished he hadn’t done that.

She couldn’t say any of that, though. 

“About what?” she asked, not looking at him.

Gendry sighed heavily. “Anything,” he said.

Arya cleared her throat and continued smoking. He was an enthusiastic star-gazer. That was why he’d come outside to sneak a cigarette, it was why he’d started smoking in the first place. Arya vividly remembered Gendry’s reaction to the night sky in Winterfell, so different and more glorious than the one over King’s Landing. 

As angry as she had been at him all that week, and as self-absorbed she’d been at fourteen – as all teenagers were – Arya had still been touched at the way he excitedly pointed out constellations to Bran.

“What happened to you?” he asked quietly. 

She knew what he meant. As loaded as the question was, and as much as she wanted to tell him to fuck off or laugh hysterically, she knew what he meant.

“You don’t want to know,” she said.

“Oh fuck off,” Gendry snapped.

“ _You_ fuck off,” Arya snapped back. “It’s only going to get us pissed at each other, then one of us is going to storm off and be furious about it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her with flat eyes, the way he did when he thought she was full of shite.

She sighed. _Fine_.

“I was stabbed.”

“You were stabbed,” he repeated flatly.

“Three times. I suppose you could think of it as a stabb _ing_ ,” she said pithily.

Arya turned to look at him. It was difficult to tell from this far with only the moon and the glow of his cigarette tip to illuminate his face, but she was almost certain he was scowling at her.

“Three times,” he bit out.

“Aye.”

He stared at her, hard. His shoulders were tense and he’d run his hand through his hair four times in the last minute. Arya could feel herself gearing up for a fight, ready to tap into the rage she’d felt on and off over the last two years. 

But then he deflated, the fire in him burning out as quickly as it had ignited.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said automatically.

“Arya,” he said tiredly. He always rolled the ‘r’ in her name a bit, a remnant of the Flea Bottom accent he’d grown up with.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” she snapped. 

“Why not?” 

“Because – because you know why,” Arya said, wishing she could tap into her own fire instead of feeling like she was about to cry. “You know _exactly_ why. I went to Braavos, I got stabbed, I’m here now, it’s fine.”

She stood, ready to storm off and lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep again.

“I didn’t know,” Gendry said as she opened the sliding glass door. “I fucking _hate_ that I didn’t know.”

“Yeah well, whose fault is that?” she asked bitterly. 

She left the door open behind her, because if she touched the handle she was going to slam it shut and she knew from experience doing so would cause it to jump off the track and trap him outside. As much as Arya would love to trap him outside as punishment for ruining what should’ve been a relaxing smoke before bed, she didn’t want to catch grief about breaking the door from Robb. Again. 

Arya stalked through the kitchen and out the front door. She smoked her entire preroll cross legged next to the welcome mat, until her eyes were squinting and she was giggling a tad too loudly at Instagram memes. 

She slipped back inside quiet as a shadow. The dogs were in there respective rooms, with the exception of Shaggydog who was laid out on the foldout couch in the living room beside Rickon. Arya couldn’t fault him for not alerting anyone to her movements. He was getting on in years and beside that Arya had been creeping past the Stark dogs most of her life.

A dark form in front of her open bedroom door made her pause on the stairs, the top of her head only barely visible over the bottom of the banister. 

Gendry squinted into the darkness of the room, then sighed and hung his head. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispered. Then he straightened and walked down the hall to his own room. 

Arya waited until the light coming from underneath his door had gone out to finish climbing the stairs and slip into her room. 

*****

Waking up the next morning was like wrenching her limbs out of tar. There was no convincing herself that an early morning run would energize her. Arya could hardly convince herself to get out of bed to use the bathroom. 

She slunk back from it with every intention of getting dressed to provide Rickon with reinforcements – she could already hear Ben and Cat chatting loudly downstairs – but instead she crawled back into bed and threw the covers over her head to avoid staring up at the ceiling.

The next time she woke it was to the sound of firm knocking at her door. Arya struggled out of bed and opened it a crack, frowning at Rickon.

“Your presence has been requested downstairs, Yaya,” Rickon said.

“I’m not feeling well,” Arya said.

Rickon frowned. “If this is your way of getting out of Last Man Wake Up,” he started.

“It’s not,” she snapped. “I’m not feeling well.”

She shut the door and locked it again before climbing back into bed to stare at the ceiling. Fifteen minutes later a gentler knock came at the door. Arya sighed heavily and opened the it.

“Rickon said you weren’t feeling well,” Sansa said carefully. 

“I’m not,” Arya said flatly. 

“Can I bring you anything?” Sansa asked. “Advil? Tums?”

“No. I’m fine – I’ll be fine,” she said. Arya made to close the door but Sansa stuck her hand out to stop it from shutting.

“Did something happen?” she asked quietly.

They hadn’t been close growing up. Sansa had always been so _perfect_ and Arya had constantly been a disappointment to Mum. Then, sometime after she’d broken it off with Joffery for the last time Sansa had confessed that she always felt like there was nothing she could do to make Dad respect her the way he had always respected Arya. 

Wasn’t it strange, Sansa’d said, how after all that it had been their parents who’d kept them apart? It was the year they’d started family therapy, video chatting with a therapist local to Winterfell so they could see her in person during the holidays.

They hadn’t been close as children, or teenagers, but they were close now. Sansa was the person who knew her best, beside Gendry. Or maybe it was the other way around now.

“No,” Arya lied, hating herself a little bit for it. “I’m just not feeling well.”

She shut the door before she had to watch Sansa register the lie. 

The third knock was Jon. He frowned down at her from the doorway when she cracked it open, Ghost at his side looking as concerned as a dog physically could. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Arya said, feeling the first brush of annoyance. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Sansa thinks you’re upset,” Jon said simply.

“What do _you_ think?” Arya snapped. 

He raised his eyebrows. “I think you seem perfectly yourself,” he said dryly. “What’s happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. 

It didn’t, not really. So she and Gendry had fought. What else had she expected to happen? What else could _anyone_ have expected to happen? That she would get him alone for the first time since he’d said –

“Arya… That’s not – I thought we were best mates?” he asked, running his hand through his hair. “Look, I can’t. Alright? I don’t… I love you, but it can’t be like _that_.”

And they’d go back to the way it had been before she’d stupidly convinced herself that maybe, probably he loved her too? 

It was ridiculous. The kind of fantasy teenaged Sansa and Jeyne Poole might dream up. Arya knew better than that.

Jon sighed heavily. “Is this… about you and Gendry?” he asked hesitantly. 

“What about me and Gendry?” she asked, more sharply than she meant to.

“I don’t know,” he frowned, “neither of you will tell me. But I do know something’s happened. You’ve had a fight or… something.”

“Honestly, Jon it really couldn’t matter less,” Arya said. “We’re fine. I’m just not feeling well.”

The next knock at the door was firm and authoritative. Arya threw back the covers and rolled her eyes. 

“I swear by the old gods, you and Bran had better be tag-teaming this one, Robb,” Arya said as she stomped to the door. “I’m tired of explaining that I’m –”

Robb was not standing there when she swung the door open, nor was Bran. Instead, it was Gendry with crossed arms and a furrowed brow the way he always got when he was puzzling something out.

“Seven hells,” Arya swore.

“Do you want me to leave?” Gendry asked, but instead of waiting for a response he strode into the room and shut the door behind him.

“That’s an odd way to end that question,” Arya said.

He shot her a look. “Not the room,” he said in a tone that indicated he knew she was being difficult on purpose. “Feastfires. Do you want me to leave?”

“Did it ever occur to you that this might not have anything to do with you? That I might actually _be_ sick?” she asked. 

“No, because I’m not _actually_ stupid,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me for two years –”

“ _I’ve_ been avoiding _you?_ ”

“– and then you finally show up somewhere you know I’ll be, and you’re miserable. You won’t talk to me, you barely even _look_ at me,” he ran his hand through his hair, “so… Again, do you want me to leave? Because I’ll go if it means you won’t be hiding out from your family.”

“What did you think this,” Arya waved her hand between the two of them, “was going to be like?”

“I don’t know!” Gendry threw up his hands. “I didn’t think about it past that I would get to talk to you again!”

“And you said you weren’t actually stupid,” Arya said.

He scowled at her. “How is it possible you’re still just as much a pain in my ass?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she crossed her arms and returned his scowl, “how is it possible you’re still such a stupid bull?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” he snapped.

“So have I,” she snapped back.

They glared at each other for a beat, then Gendry’s face twitched. Arya’s scowl twisted into a sneer, but then it did it again, and again. Then suddenly he was laughing.

Arya gaped at him, then raised her hands and inhaled to start to speak only to find she couldn’t think of anything to say. She fought her snicker with every fiber of her being, but it escaped her anyway. Then all at once the absurdity of the situation hit her, and she laughed too.

Gods, she wasn’t even wearing _pants_. She was standing there arguing with a showered and fully dressed Gendry in her underwear and what was probably his old shirt.

She rubbed her face with a hand when her laughter finally subsided. Gendry sighed and wiped the corners of his eyes, still chuckling slightly.

“We’re a disaster,” he said quietly with his last huff of laughter.

Arya snorted and shrugged.

“Should I pack up?” Gendry asked, but he was grinning.

Arya rolled her eyes dramatically. “Obviously not,” she said.

“Are you positive?” he asked, but his voice was lilting and his smile grew wider. “I can –”

“Shut up, stupid,” she said. 

“It’s just that I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” Gendry said, eyes alight.

“Oh my gods,” Arya muttered.

“I’m trying to be sensi – Oi!” he called out in exaggerated pain as she pushed him toward the door. “You’re manhandling me!”

“Fitting as you’re a complete doorknob,” she said, failing to suppress a wide smile when he tilted his head back and laughed again.

His laugh was as warm as the skin of his arms felt under her hands. Gendry was always warm, like brick that had been sitting in the sun all day. He thrived in the heat of Oldtown, refusing to run the apartment air-conditioning while Arya was reduced to a sweaty mess. She would always eventually have her revenge when winter arrived and she dragged him north for the holidays. He’d always been miserable in Winterfell during the winter, complaining it was too cold even as they watched TV on her laptop in front of the fire.

“How could you possibly still be shivering?” Arya asked, squeezed against his side on the wide L of the couch with half of her laptop balanced on her thigh.

“Your feet are freezing,” he said, shifting so she could sit a bit closer to him, allowing him to wrap the sheepskin blanket – the top of their three blanket pile – more firmly around them. “And your ears!”

Arya made to move her head from his shoulder, but instead he brought a hand up to cup her other ear. “I can’t hear the show,” she complained through her laughter.

“You’re on the verge of frostbite,” Gendry informed her seriously. “You’ve probably lost three toes. At least.”

“Three?” she snorted.

“At least,” he repeated. He reached forward to play the next episode. The play of the firelight on his face made it seem softer and more gentle. “You’re going to miss the cold open if you keep staring at my face.”

“Your teeth are chattering,” she turned her head and hoping it hid her blush, “it’s distracting.”

“It’s your toes,” Gendry relaxed against the couch back. “You have to go get socks after this episode or I’m kicking you out of my cocoon.”

He hadn’t though. Instead when the episode ended and Arya made to untangle herself and go upstairs, Gendry set his hand on her thigh and started the next episode. It had marked the first time Arya had talked about him – _talked_ talked – to Sansa. The sisters had spent the night wrapped in bathrobes on the floor of Sansa’s closet, having discovered a long time ago how deceptively far voices could carry in the Stark house.

Back in the present she shoved Gendry out of the door, but only because he let her. “I need to change,” she said as he pretended to fight against her closing the door. 

“Alright,” Gendry stepped out of the way of the door. “But, I don’t think you should wear what you did yesterday.”

Her breath caught. “What?”

“It was really strange to wear a shirt and shorts _and_ socks under your swimsuit –”

“Oh my gods!” Arya laughed indignantly, heart stuttering under the force of Gendry beaming at her. She shut the door with a final scoff and heard him laughing his way down the hall.

*****

The cork had been popped on the emotions she’d been keeping bottled up, and the next three days passed in sunshine, salt air, and emotional champagne – and in the case of the first morning Sansa and Arya prepared breakfast, actual champagne. They still maintained more of a physical distance than they had since Arya was underage and hiding frogs in Gendry’s truck, but they were _talking_ again. 

Gendry would drag his lawn chair next to hers or sit on his towel with Barra or Cat in-between them, and ask her about her expedition or the book she was reading. She would sit across from him at meals and listen to him talk about his work or the adult football league he’d joined. Jon was visibly more relaxed and Theon grinned broadly every time he caught them chatting alone. 

Sansa, however, watched them impassively at best. 

It was Tuesday evening and they were all sprawled around the deck enjoying the warm twilight. Rickon had enthusiastically invited Gendry to join in in the card game he, Bran, and Arya were playing and Arya kept catching Sansa watching them out of the corner of her eye. Her lips were pursed and her brows knitted, as if considering a painting she didn't quite understand.

“I can’t believe I forgot what rotten cheaters you lot are,” Gendry lamented, slapping his hand down to pull the discard pile into his hand. 

“Us? Cheat?” Bran put his right hand on his chest, “We would never.” He used his left hand to double discard – which only Rickon and Arya noticed.

“You’re the one with extra help,” Rickon tilted his head to Barra, sitting on Gendry’s knee and happily arranging the discard pile into an orderly stack for him. 

“Even Barra can’t help him,” Arya said, taking advantage of Gendry’s massive eye-roll to pass Barra extra cards, as she had been doing all game. 

She giggled and tugged on her ear before folding it up into Gendry’s substantial hand. Arya nodded and winked. 

“What was that?” Gendry pointed at her face.

“What was what?” Arya asked innocently.

“You winked,” he accused. He rotated Barra in his lap and squinted down at her dramatically. “Are you helping her?”

“No,” Barra and Arya said in tandem, only Arya managing to sound successfully innocent. 

“I can’t believe this,” he threw his arms up. “Betrayed by my own sister!”

He tickled Barra’s sides, causing her to laugh and try wriggle out of his grip and off his lap. All five of them were laughing as Gendry made a show of being overpowered by Barra’s strength. Arya was still laughing when Barra escaped and ran around the table.

Barra climbed into her lap with the confidence of a six-year-old who was well loved and cared for, and expected it always to be that way. Arya helped her up without question, bringing one arm around to rest on her firm, toddler-round stomach to balance her there.

“And now I’ve been abandoned!” Gendry wrung his hands, but his smile was nearly blinding as he watched Barra lean back into Arya’s chest so she could look at her cards.

“Don’t listen to him,” Arya stage whispered in her ear. “There’s nothing wrong about strategically switching teams.”

Rickon let out a bark of laughter. “You’d know,” he said. 

Robb booed loudly behind him, leading to a solid forty-five seconds of everyone on the deck booing him and heckling the joke. 

“I am unappreciated in my time,” Rickon grumbled. He discarded three cards of different suits and numbers, which was egregious enough for Gendry to notice.

“Oi,” Gendry pointed down at the discard pile, “that’s _bull_ – that’s _nonsense_.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t actually have to take seven extra cards when you draw a seven,” Rickon said to angry exclamations from Arya and Bran.

Even Robb, who passionately hated when the three of them cheated at cards – because of the years spent losing every known card game to them – laughed at the outraged look on Gendry’s face. The children joined in as well, though they weren’t tracking the conversation. 

“I quit,” Gendry told her, scowling with laughing eyes. 

“That’s fine, I was tired of winning anyway,” Arya said smartly.

“Winning is an odd way of phrasing coming in second place twice,” Bran said.

“If you bothered to check the standings, I think you’ll find I’m in the lead,” she pointed at the notepad they tracked won rounds on, which she had subtly padded over the course of the game.

“I didn’t realize we’d played twelve hands,” Rickon said dryly.

“Which is why you only won the one,” Arya said.

“You are unbelievable,” Gendry said. He tossed down his cards in mock disgust and pressed his chair back away from the table. “I’m going for a walk. Do –”

“Arya,” Sansa called out quickly, “can I get your help in the kitchen with the D-E-S-S-E-R-T?”

“There’s a pony in the kitchen?!” Rickon gasped.

“A pony!” Cat yelled, hopping to her feet and toppling the arrangement of small plastic dolls she and Lyra had been playing with in the shadow of Ben’s fat Lego castle.

“A pony?” Ben asked hopefully.

“I am going to abandon you at a fire-station,” Robb hissed at Rickon. 

Arya followed Sansa inside, escaping the havoc Rickon had unleashed. Ygritte called him several things that shouldn’t have been said around the children, but she did it in such a thick Northern accent that even Arya had difficulty parsing what had been said. 

“Is there actually dessert?” Arya asked after checking the door was securely closed.

“Of course,” Sansa said. She began to pull out multi-colored reusable plastic bowls and spoons and nodded at the fridge. “Can you grab the ice cream and whipped cream? We’re going to do sundaes.”

She gathered the supplies, including a small jar of maraschino cherries and a bottle of chocolate syrup. Sansa had pulled out a multitude of sprinkles and was arranging everything on the kitchen table. 

“Well?” Arya asked, setting the gathered ingredients on the table.

“I’m glad you’re getting on again,” Sansa said carefully.

“But?”

She sighed. “I don’t know if either of your feelings have changed since… before Braavos,” she said, looking as if it pained her to be the one to say it. “I don’t want you to put yourself into a situation where you’ll be hurt again.”

Arya let out her own heavy sigh. “That’s fair,” she mumbled. “And accurate.”

Sansa’s pale blue eyes were heavy with sympathy. “I don’t want you to stop talking to him. I swear I don’t,” she said. “You’re both already more yourselves. I wish – I wish I had advice or something other than worry to give.”

“No,” Arya moved to wrap her arms around Sansa from behind, “no you’re right.” She pressed her forehead into Sansa’s back. “I missed him so much, I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe we should ask Theon to talk to him,” Sansa said. “Or Jon.”

Arya snorted and released her. “I’m not positive either of them has the finesse required.”

“None of the men in our family have any amount of finesse,” Sansa said dryly. “And I am counting my husband.”

Arya laughed and went to tell everyone the sundae bar was ready. The announcement came a few moments too late to prevent Rickon from being confronted by every parent and most of the children – Lyra and Duncan lacking the vocabulary or awareness to tell him he’d been rude. It did significantly lighten the mood though. 

Gendry had either forgotten or decided against asking Arya on a walk down the beach. It was for the best, because she didn’t know that her heart could take a moonlight stroll on the beach with him. Instead he taught Cat and Barra a game that involved dropping extra cherries – which he knew she despised – into her bowl of ice cream.

He laughed when she started whipping them at him – when the little ones had been sent upstairs to brush their teeth and get ready for bed – and complained loudly while they cleaned them up after being cowed by Jeyne.

*****

Sleep came to Arya easily that night, sweeping her along so quickly that she missed the transition from thought to dream. 

In her dream they were sitting on the couch in their old apartment, Arya reading out of a much battered textbook and Gendry finishing up work while a Kingsguard game played in the background.

“Oakheart’s playing like absolute shite,” Arya observed. 

“Mhm,” Gendry hummed, brow furrowed and all his attention on his sketch.

“They don’t stand a chance against the Wolves next week,” she said.

“Mhm.”

“I was thinking we should paint the living room bright purple.”

“Mhm.”

“With orange trim.”

“Mhm.”

“I’ve been thinking about shaving my head.”

“Mhm.”

In reality Arya had loudly announced that she was planning on moving to Pentos with Hot Pie to open up an artisanal bakery, which had at last captured his attention. 

In the dream Arya set down her textbook and pulled off her shirt, leaving her chest completely bare. She crossed her legs and then cleared her throat loudly.

Gendry glanced up then froze. Slowly he raised his eyebrows as he set aside his notebook. “You have my attention,” he said. “Now, what are you going to do with it?”

Arya smiled and stood, and the location shifted in the fluid way dreams did and they were laying on the hotel bed she had spent her last week of recovery in Braavos in. Except instead of Jon sitting next to it in silent vigil while she slept through a haze of pain-killers, Gendry now kneeled at the base of the bed with her thighs draped over his shoulders.

They were both naked, and she knew without seeing that he was stroking himself as he ate her out, his tongue moving against her with vigor. She let out a breathy moan, jerking her hips and squealing when he nipped at the inside of her thigh to remind her to stay still.

“Please,” she gasped.

Then she was laying with her chest and arms outstretched on the bed, her knees bent and he was entering her from behind. Gendry pumped into her with a practiced ease of someone who knew every inch their partner’s body, bending down to kiss down her spine. 

They came at the same time, calling out each other’s names. Gendry curled himself around her in the afterglow, and they were still in the hotel bed but now it was inside her studio apartment. 

“I love you,” Gendry whispered in her ear. “You know I love you.”

“Do you?” she asked. 

“Why would I say it if it wasn’t true?” he asked, but instead of laying in bed they were back in their apartment.

Newly fully clothed, Arya reached out to grab his hand. “Come with me,” she said, even though she knew what would happen next. “We could walk along the canals and go see mummers’ shows. And get really into fencing.”

“I can’t leave my job for nine months,” Gendry said.

“You could work remotely,” she said quickly. “We could rent an apartment instead of staying at the hostel. I even promise to take it easy on the dragon peppers. I can’t not see you for nine months. Please.”

“It would be nice to be able to actually taste the food,” he laughed. “I’ll visit you. You won’t have time for me while you’re working.”

“I’d make time,” Arya insisted. It was getting away from her, and she dreaded her next words. “I don’t want to go without you –”

Desperately Arya tried to stop herself from continuing, but the dream had twisted out of her control. The part of her in the dream that was on the couch continued, blissfully unaware of the utter disaster the next three words would cause.

“I love you.”

The only thing that existed in the silence that followed were his sea blue eyes, heavy with regret and longing and shame.

“Arya… That’s not – I thought we were best mates?” 

He ran a hand though his hair, searching her face desperately for an answer to his question. She had none, bile and heat rising in her until she felt painfully constricted.

“Look, I can’t. Alright?” Gendry said heavily. “I don’t… I love you, but it can’t be like _that_.”

Arya’s eyes flew open. She was momentarily disoriented as she peered around in the dull grey early morning light that filled the room through the curtains she’d forgotten to close the night before. She breathed deeply and shut her eyes, feeling the echo of embarrassment and hurt the memory dream had brought. 

Abruptly she rolled over and buried her face into her pillow to muffle her exasperated shout. It had been such a pleasant sex dream. Why couldn’t it have _stayed_ a pleasant sex dream?

Sansa’s worried words echoed around her mind, picking up traction with Arya’s own anxieties. It had been a mistake to come, to talk to him again, to laugh with him again. But she couldn’t go back to not speaking with him, not telling him stupid jokes, not listening to him complain about his coworkers. It didn’t seem to matter that she knew he didn’t love her, because she still loved him. Even after two years of doing her best to forget all about him, she loved him.

This was her, she was for him. 

She shouted into her pillow again, trapped. When she was certain she was done with existential screaming, Arya stood and changed into her running clothes. No one in the house was stirring, not even the dogs. 

Arya did her best to clear her mind as she ran, focusing on the burning in her lungs and mentally writing her sections of their future journal article. They should include a section on birth and pregnancy, it would help inform the harsh measures taken to reserve water. 

When she returned to the beach house she was drenched in sweat and her legs ached, and her mind had reached a level of clarity that could really only be reached when your body was physically exhausted. The goal was still the same – make it through this week and return to her life – but the execution could change. 

She would pretend. Pretend she’d never said she loved him. Pretend he’d never abandoned her. They could be the old Gendry and Arya again for the rest of the week, and then it could be over, and it wouldn’t be like having her heart broken all over again.

It would be fine. They would be fine. She would be fine.


	2. Part II

The clouds over head did not burn off with the morning sun. Instead they darkened until they matched the color of Arya’s eyes as she showered and pulled on the comfiest pair of joggers and sweater she’d packed. It had been a gift from Ned Dayne, a now nearly threadbare pale purple crewneck sweater advertising the Starfall Swords – a footie team that had dissolved years before either of them were born. 

She braided her wet hair back in two squat braids and walked downstairs, feeling her clarity cloud over to match the sky overhead. They continued to darken over the course of the extended breakfast, and the wind and waves grew more ferocious and choppy. 

Sansa and Jon watched the weather shift with such solemness and apprehension they might have been watching the sun set at the beginning of the Long Night.

“This makes sense for Jon, but don’t you think you’re being a tad overdramatic?” Bran asked Sansa as she stood with her arms crossed in front of the sliding glass door.

“No,” she said shortly.

“It’s going to rain,” Jon said darkly, for the fifth time in the last two minutes.

“Mental how he can just, _divine_ the weather,” Rickon said.

“The brave rangers of our National Parks Service are lucky to claim him in their ranks,” Arya snickered.

Robb strode into the room, face severe. “Have you looked outside?” he asked, despite clearly seeing that every single one of his siblings were looking out at the gathering storm.

Jon nodded seriously. “It’s going to rain,” he said. _Again_.

“And people say _I’m_ the omniscient one,” Bran muttered. 

“No one says that,” Rickon said.

“People say that,” Bran countered.

“Name one.”

“Jojen.”

“You bloody well know your boyfriend isn’t a reliable primary source,” Rickon waved his arm from Arya to Bran, “tell him, Arya.”

“You asked me to name one person –”

Arya rolled her eyes and let the two of them to continue to bicker lightheartedly while she turned her attention back to her older siblings.

“We need to restock on food as well,” Robb said darkly. 

“You lot know we’re in a fully functioning town, with restaurants and grocery stores and everything, right?” Arya asked.

Sansa turned on her, both literally and figuratively.

“You have no idea what’s coming,” she flipped her auburn hair over her shoulder, “shopping for all of us will take at least three people. And this,” she pointed up at the darkening sky, “means the children will be stuck inside all day.”

She sounded like the portent of doom at the beginning of every horror movie. Bran and Rickon quit their bickering to exchange eye rolls and long suffering looks with Arya.

“Right, so send us to the shops,” Arya shrugged. Rickon and Bran nodded.

Jon turned away from the window and eyed them. “Historically that has led to utter disaster, and five separate types of pasta with nothing else,” he said.

“That was one time,” Rickon started.

“You always take ages as well,” Robb said. “ _Ages_. And we need food for lunch today, not three days from now.”

“Alright then you go, Captain Groceries,” Rickon snapped.

“He needs to set up the tarp over the roof,” Sansa said. “Because the leak still hasn’t been fixed.”

“I didn’t expect it to storm during the summer,” Robb said.

“Clearly,” Sansa said archly. 

“If you knew about it, you could’ve called someone just as well as Robb,” Jon pointed out.

“Oh we never get to hear them fight amongst themselves,” Rickon whispered excitedly.

“Exactly why do I, the eldest sister, need to shoulder the bulk of the emotional labor for this, my brother’s house?” Sansa asked. 

Bran and Rickon sucked in air and turned their heads to Jon for his reply. However, Jon had realized he’d moved into hot water and had the life preservation instincts to shut his mouth and look over Sansa’s shoulder. 

Robb did not.

“I don’t have the time to remember every little thing that needs to be fixed up,” Robb said, off to a miserable start. 

“Oh no,” Bran said.

“You couldn’t possibly imagine how busy I am during the work day,” he continued sanctimoniously. 

“Holy shit,” Rickon breathed, his face lit up like a child on Candlenights.

“Besides, you always want things done in such a particular way,” Robb continued, still unable to understand that Sansa – who seemed to have grown an additional six inches and was beginning to tower over the rest of them – had him outmatched. “You should be the one to do it.”

“Oh, Robb,” Bran sighed.

Sansa clasped her hands in front of her and arched one perfectly shaped brow. “Are you finished?” she asked.

Robb at last realized the danger he had put himself in and nodded a little shakily.

“Excellent,” Sansa said. “Skipping over the part where _you_ , a _family law_ attorney, tell _me_ , the _assistant district attorney_ that I could not ‘ _possibly imagine_ ’ a scenario where I would be busy at work –” 

“Holy shit,” Rickon said again. “Sansa is about to end Robb’s entire career.”

“I would like you to clarify for me, if you could, the ways in which a roof repair could be done in a ‘particular way’,” she finished, her voice so arch it raised the height of the ceilings.

“I’m allergic to this,” Arya said and walked out of the room.

She could hear Robb furiously back peddling and Rickon egging Sansa on all the way up the stairs. On her way to the playroom Arya rapped on Jeyne’s open bedroom door.

“Sansa’s about to murder your dumbass husband,” she said, sticking her head into the room when Jeyne greeted her.

Jeyne sighed. “What’s it this time?” she asked tiredly.

“No, really,” Arya said. “They’re actually fighting, and she’s actually going to reduce him to a puddle of impotent testosterone in the kitchen.”

“Oh shit,” Jeyne rose and walked in the direction of the stairs.

Arya’s next stop was to tell Theon much the same thing. He merely shrugged. 

“Either I go down there and try to help defend Robb and she divorces me, or I go down there and watch her murder my best mate,” he said. “Either way, I lose. Besides, I couldn’t help him when we were teenagers and she’s _much_ more articulate now.”

“Fair play,” Arya said. “But I think this one’s going to be serious.”

“ _Excuse me?!_ ” Sansa snapped from downstairs.

She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head toward the stairs, and Theon stood reluctantly. 

“It’s because it’s raining,” he muttered as he made his way downstairs. “They get into it every time it rains while we’re here…”

Ben, Cat, and Barra were involved in a lively conversation that filtered out through the partially open playroom door. Arya paused by it, listening in and marveling how much like tiny people they were.

“My best friend’s name is Owen,” Ben said. “We do coloring together and on some days after school I go to his house. He has a cat named Bear.”

“Alys is my best friend,” Cat bragged, not to be outdone by Owen and his cat. “We play fairy princess knights.”

“Do you have a best friend?” Ben asked.

“Bella and Margie,” Barra said, sounding uncertain.

“Your best friend has to be your age,” Cat said. “They go to school.”

“Oh,” Barra said, clearly upset. 

Arya was about to step into the room when Gendry spoke up. He must’ve been playing Legos with them again. The day before he had spent hours constructing a castle for Lyra’s plastic dolls, only to be told by Lyra that she was all done playing dolls when he finished.

“That’s not true,” he said easily. “Your best friend is whoever you want to talk to the most. If you want to talk to Bella and Margie the most, then they’re your best friends.”

Arya desperately hoped Gendry called Margaery ‘Margie’ to her face. Arya _was_ fond of Margaery, but there were times when she reminded her of years spent in opposition to Sansa. Plus, there was that time Margaery had set Gendry up with her cousin.

For the first time it occurred to Arya that Gendry might’ve started dating someone in the time they’d been apart. No one had mentioned anything to her, but her siblings would only know if he told them. 

Her – not panicked, but not exactly calm – thoughts were derailed when Ben next spoke.

“Papa says Uncle Jon is your best friend ’cause you lived in the same house for school,” Ben said.

“Nah-uh,” Barra corrected quickly. “Gendry’s best friend lives in lots of places far away and is busy with special work so she can’t visit.”

“Mhm,” Gendry agreed.

Arya opened her mouth and inhaled so strongly she might’ve sucked the door off the hinges were it not for the hand she had clamped over her mouth. She could picture the exact way he would be nodding, with that surprised smile he got whenever Barra was her own little person. She exhaled slowly and silently, feeling every beat of her heart in the air coming out of her lungs.

“Yaya lives far away,” Cat said.

“Does she know Yaya?” Ben asked. “Maybe they can be friends too and Yaya can have a new best friend. Mum says that she lost hers but Papa doesn’t think so.”

“Mama says Yaya loves her best friend,” Cat objected. “And Dada says so too.”

“I wish we could ask Lyra but she’s too little,” Ben lamented. “Bet Uncle Jon knows.” 

Gendry snorted. “Maybe,” he said. “Jon’s pretty smart. Not as smart as you three, but who is?”

Arya resisted the urge to burst into the room and demand Gendry answer Ben’s question, even though she was absolutely certain that she knew the answer. Instead, she stayed stock-still and hoped that one of the children would ask Gendry again.

A hand patted firmly on her shoulder and Arya jumped out of her skin and transcended to a different dimension. 

When she recovered she turned around to see Ygritte with Lyra on her hip. 

“Sorry I was just…” she trailed off.

“Eavesdropping on the bairns?” Ygritte asked quietly.

“Aye,” Arya winced. “Sort of…” 

“I do it all the time myself,” Ygritte said. “Learned more about Theon through Cat than I ever could pull out of Jon.” 

Arya nodded, then winced again when Gendry spoke, his low voice carrying unfortunately well into the hall.

“I think we need to build the base a bit more before we start building up,” he said, to general agreement from the children.

“Ah,” Ygritte smiled widely and her eyes twinkled. “Spying at doors.”

“ _Please_ don’t tell anyone,” Arya whispered.

“I wouldn’t,” Ygritte assured her. “There’s no one else who hopes this works out more than me. Apart from Jon.”

It was probably true, since Arya was decidedly uncertain about how she _realistically_ wanted this week to end. And she had no idea what Gendry wanted at all, which was unprecedented for her. Arya nodded and turned to knock on the door to save herself having to explain that to Ygritte, who in that moment looked much more omniscient than Bran ever had.

“What’re we up to in here?” Arya asked, leading Ygritte and Lyra into the playroom. 

It was a disaster of toys and small clothes, with rumpled sheets and a rug that had been folded over to better balance the play table. They were all gathered around the table, studying the beginnings of an extremely tall and round – as round as Lego structures could be anyway – tower.

“We’re building the tallest tower ever!” Ben said excitedly. 

“I help?” Lyra asked.

“Yes,” Cat said brightly, holding out a handful of Legos for Lyra to collect. “These go to Ben.” 

They were only sitting a few feet apart, but the cousins continued to rely on Lyra for Lego transport with the same practiced ease Arya and Bran had once told Rickon to play judge with while they played monsters and maidens. Inclusivity, but not at the expense of the fun of the game. Arya laughed lightly and Gendry caught her eye, grinning. 

*****

Disaster struck about ten minutes after Arya had settled herself next to Cat to aid in the construction of the tower. 

The tower proved impossible to manage since Cat kept changing her mind about what Lego color she wanted wear, and attempted to remedy the situation by pulling out bricks at random. This greatly irritated Ben, who went so far as to go downstairs to tattle – the only adults upstairs being Arya and Gendry as Ygritte had been called downstairs for the great council to decide who would do the shopping. 

The Cat/Ben conflict quickly morphed into another round of Sansa vs Robb, which was as much Robb’s fault as the first one had been. This drove Sansa up –

“– the _fucking_ actual _Wall_. All seven hundred _fucking_ feet of it.”

Rickon had cheered loudly when he overheard Sansa swearing as she marched up the stairs.

Unfortunately for Sansa, Theon’s blind agreement that Robb was out of order was not sufficiently cathartic. Nor was Rickon’s actual begging for her to shout at him again. Bran had snuck off to the garage to smoke weed – which Arya was sworn to secrecy about after catching him there – and Jon was attempting mediate between the two of them, but only really succeeding in siding with Robb in a roundabout way.

This infuriated Sansa to the point of near tears and she and Arya had spent a good forty minutes talking it over in her bedroom with the door locked to prevent any of their brothers from interfering. This had worked until Sansa showed no sign of stopping and Arya ran out of emotional energy. Which had caused the two of them to get into a spat, leading to the decision that Sansa, Ygritte, Jeyne, and Theon would go shopping.

“Are we sure we want to send the trauma surgeon _and_ the wilderness survival expert _and_ the smartest person in our family out as this massive, unprecedented light rainstorm is about to strike?” Rickon called as the four of them left. “Also Theon?”

Arya smacked him behind the head. “Shut up.”

“Oi! Just because you’re fighting with everyone –”

Arya’s glare stopped him mid-sentence. 

“Alright,” Rickon muttered. 

It had also started raining, just as Jon and every person in the city with the ability of sight had predicted. Unfortunately, the tarp had not gone up before the rain. Even Rickon had been turned off by the energy which followed _that_ revelation.

Because she was only technically fighting with Sansa, Jon – after he accused her of playing favorites – and Robb, Arya took pity on her younger brothers and squirreled them away in her room. She and Rickon had reignited their dynamite two person assist technique to bring Bran up with them.

Currently Arya, Rickon, and Bran were laying on her bed watching a true crime documentary on Rickon’s laptop. 

“Do either of you feel badly that we’re hiding out and leaving Jon, Robb, and Gendry to deal with four toddlers and an infant all on their own?” Bran asked.

“No,” Rickon said. “Because Jon and Robb are their _parents_. Sexist.”

“None of us are allowed to fight right now,” Arya snapped as Bran opened his mouth.

“But we have fun when we row with each other,” Rickon whined.

“Yeah,” Bran said, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“I can’t listen to anyone else bicker,” she insisted. “They’ve taken the fun out of it.”

“Can I say, that represents some remarkable character growth on your part,” Bran said. “Still, don’t you think us hiding out is likely to cause the three of them to get into it?”

“If they need our help, they’ll come and get us,” Arya said. 

Someone knocked on the door almost the exact instant the words left her mouth.

“Woods witch,” Rickon hissed.

“Arya?” 

Her heart lurched, and her memory was torn in a hundred different directions remembering all the times he’d knocked quietly on her door and said her name just like that. 

“It’s open,” she said automatically, trying to pull her mind back to the here and now.

Gendry opened the door slowly. She didn’t miss the slight raise of his eyebrows as he took in the presence of all the other people in the room. 

He looked flustered. His black hair stood on end and his face was red and patchy the way it got when he was feeling overwhelmed. 

“Can you come help me?” he asked a little desperately. 

“Yeah,” she said immediately, already crawling over Rickon.

It was obvious what he needed help with the instant they left the room. It sounded like every single child from Duncan to Ben was wailing. Loudest and most heart wrenching was Barra. 

Arya darted back into the room and pointed at Rickon. “Go help Jon and Robb,” she ordered. “Bran, if you want to go back downstairs or need something text me.”

“Do I have to wait for you two to keep watching?” Bran asked.

“No,” Arya decided. She rejoined Gendry in the hall and followed him to the guest room he’d claimed for his own.

Barra was laying on the floor, sobbing into the jute rug. Her skin was the same patchy red as Gendry, and when she heard them come into the room and close the door she rolled over to give them a better view of her heavy tears.

“She’s been feeling homesick, then I told her we could video chat with Bella and Margaery, but the connection kept dropping and I couldn’t get them back,” Gendry said quickly, running a hand through his hair.

Arya nodded and sat crosslegged next to Barra. “I know sweetling, I know,” she said soothingly. She placed her hand on Barra’s chest, feeling the kick of her heartbeat like a tiny bird throwing itself against the wall. 

She shut her eyes and inhaled steadily, held her breath for three seconds, then exhaled smoothly. Arya opened her eyes and made sure Barra was watching her as she did it all again, and again. Gradually Barra began to mimic her breathing, her cries fizzling out jerkily. When she was no longer crying, but still sniffing wetly Arya scooped her up to her lap and rubbed her back, continuing to guide her breathing.

At last Barra calmed completely, her head resting heavily against Arya’s chest. Reflexively Arya scratched light circles on her back, only realizing it after Barra looked up when she stopped.

“Gendry said you’re missing Bella and Margie,” she repressed a smile. 

“Yeah,” Barra said tearfully. “And my lovey.”

Arya glanced up at Gendry, brows knitted. _I don’t know what that is_.

“I forgot her blanket – lovey at Bella’s,” Gendry said, half crouching as if to sit beside her. “I completely fu – forgot about it. I’m really sorry, Bar.” 

“That’s okay,” Arya said soothingly, resuming her circles. “It was a mistake, we all make them sometimes.”

She nodded Gendry over and he finished sitting beside her. Her left knee was in the space over his ankles, and when he leaned in to tuck a lock of Barra’s hair behind her ear she caught a whiff of his aftershave – pine and clean air. 

Arya had given it to him for his birthday, and he’d always favored it. She was usually shite at presents, not like Sansa who would remember something said to her in passing and tuck it away for months. But for Gendry’s twenty-fifth birthday Arya had gone out to the shops and made a genuine effort. 

He wandered into the living room while she was wrapping it, even though she had specifically told him not to.

“I won’t look,” he lied, immediately coming up behind her and bending over to get a glimpse.

“Oi!” Arya threw herself down over the gift, wrapping her arms around it. “What part of ‘I’m wrapping your present, don’t come out’ didn’t you understand?”

“All of it,” Gendry crouched down and began to poke her sides. “I never learned to read.”

“Stop it,” she giggled, curling more securely around the half-wrapped box. 

“But it’s my _birthday_ ,” he whined, moving from poking her sides to tickling her.

“No it’s not,” Arya said, rolling over to push him away with her knees. “And you’re going to ruin it by looking at your present before I’ve had a chance to wrap it.”

“Since when are _you_ a birthday expert?” Gendry mocked. He moved his hands to either side of her head, resting his torso heavily over hers even as she pressed her knees into his chest. 

Arya shot her legs out to one side and hooked them around his waist. Using the momentum of the movement she swung them around, so that she was kneeling over him holding the present aloft. 

“Since always,” she said victoriously. 

One of Gendry’s hands moved to her hip, almost automatically. Arya tried her best to keep the flush out of her face, looking at his forehead instead of his eyes, which were dangerous at the moment. It wasn’t the first time they had wrestled on the floor of their living room – a shocking amount of their arguments ended this way – but they had wandered into territory very close to a dream she’d had earlier in the week. 

Taking advantage of her pause, he slid his hand down to her thigh, then to her knee and squeezed it, making it twitch. She yelped and jolted, then floundered off of him. Gendry laughed, full bellied and warm, his knees curling in with the force of his laughter.

Arya turned to her side and watched him. He was so beautiful when he laughed like this, with reckless abandon and full of joy. She darted her eyes away when he finally stopped and tilted his head to look at her. 

“It’s my birthday in,” he grabbed her wrist to check the time on her watch, “an hour and fifteen minutes and I want to open your present first.”

“It seems unlikely our secret roommate living in the walls would give you something for _your_ birthday, when they didn’t give me anything for _mine_ ,” Arya said.

“You never know,” Gendry said. He pouted dramatically. “Pretty please?”

“Fine, but after I finish wrapping it,” she said. She pressed herself to her feet and walked over to finish taping it up. 

Gendry smiled when she held it out to him, running his fingers over the ribbon of the six bows she’d stuck to it. He opened it delicately, making a show of preserving as much of the acorn themed paper as possible. 

“Is this your way of telling me I stink?” he laughed, holding up the aftershave. 

“No,” Arya said quickly. “I just – I thought it would be nice. To have something nice. And it reminded me of you…”

He was watching her carefully.

“It was stupid,” she realized. She reached forward to take it out of his hand. “I’ll return it and – take you out for a beer or something. I shouldn’t’ve –”

He cracked. “Gods, you’re so embarrassed,” he chuckled, pointing at her bright red cheeks. “Look at you!”

“Oh piss off,” Arya groaned, shoving his shoulder. “I was actually worried, stupid.”

“I could tell,” he said giddily. He opened the box and sniffed at the bottle. “I like it.”

“Good, because this is the last present I ever get you,” Arya huffed. 

Gendry wrapped her up in a hug and laughed. “Well, I loved it while it lasted,” he said.

“Happy birthday, dickhead,” Arya said into his chest.

“Thanks,” he released her and tapped the tip of her nose. 

His smile as she stuck out her tongue at him was nothing to the one he burst into her room the next morning – his actual birthday – with, having discovered the Kingsguard jersey she’d bought him. Gendry’d ruined his old lucky jersey a few weeks ago, when an errant pen cracked open in the wash.

Gendry pulled away and smiled at Arya and Barra. “How about we watch a movie and have some quiet time?” he asked.

Barra nodded, her head still pressed against Arya’s chest. “Can we watch Elissa?” Barra sniffled.

“Oh that’s my favorite ever movie,” Arya said enthusiastically. 

It really was. Or rather _Elissa Farman_ had been her favorite movie at Barra’s age, and for some time past that.

“Really?” Barra said hopefully.

She nodded vigorously. “Definitely,” she said. “I know _all_ the songs.”

“Gendry knows the songs too,” Barra said. 

Arya laughed. “I know, I taught them to him,” she said.

“I knew a _few_ before I spent four years listening to you sing them in the shower,” Gendry grumbled good naturedly.

Barra sat up in her lap and lifted her head to her hear. “It’s his favorite movie too,” she whispered, her breath hot on Arya’s ear.

“Then we have to watch it,” she said. She stood, proud of herself for not struggling to lift the two of them.

Gendry’s hand darted out and rested on her low back for a second as she stood, before withdrawing swiftly. His touch was whisper soft and light, but it spread lightning up and down her spine. 

She could still feel it as they settled on the bed, she and Gendry leaning back against the headboard while Barra laid on her stomach between them. Gendry set a large tablet with a seahorse themed case at the foot of the bed and started the movie. Arya smiled as the first strains of music started, and the animated Elissa sang to the waves crashing on the shore about a world beyond the Sunset Sea. 

Barra spent the beginning of the movie with her attention torn between the action on screen and checking that Gendry and Arya were also singing the words. Around the introduction of conflict – an emotional number where Elissa was told by her friend the Queen she was to stay on Dragonstone – Arya noticed Barra’s head beginning to nod heavily. 

She leaned over and nudged Gendry’s shoulder, then pointed to the light switch. He nodded and reached over to turn off the overhead light. He settled back against the headboard, his shoulder close enough to hers that she could feel the heat radiating off of him.

Arya found herself nodding off a bit as well, slumping over and shifting so she was resting her head on the top of a pillow. Her last ditch effort to stay awake let her catch Gendry watching her with a soft smile on his face.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she half-mumbled.

“Me neither,” Gendry said quietly. 

“I miss you.”

Arya blinked her eyes open, unsure if she’d heard him correctly or dreamed his words. The movie was ending, Elissa Farman singing a reprise of the opening song on the bow of her ship. She glanced at the still sleeping Barra, then turned her head to face Gendry.

He was grinning like a madman and filming her with his phone. 

“You _were_ tired,” he grinned. “You were snoring.”

“I was not,” Arya said defensively, even though it was likely true. She only ever snored when she was sick or dead tired.

“You snored yourself awake,” Gendry whispered delightedly. 

“Piss off,” she said.

“Do you want to see the video?” 

She accepted his proffered phone, clicking down the volume to avoid waking Barra. She watched her sleeping self ssnoring steadily. Gendry’s on screen hand had just reached out – probably to tip her head forward to open her airway a bit – when she gave a particularly loud snort and furrowed her brow. His hand retracted and seconds later she blinked open her eyes.

Just as she was about to hand his phone back and make some quip about him doctoring the footage, when a text from Sansa came in.

**Sansa:** Of course we’ll look after her. But please be mindful

“Sansa’s texted,” she said, ignoring the electric feel of his hand over hers as she returned the phone to him.

Gendry glanced down at the message and nodded. “They’re still fighting,” he said. “I thought we could go up to the lookout while everyone apologizes. If you’re done with nap time.”

“They’re _still_ fighting?” Arya groaned. “Gods.”

“They did this last year too,” Gendry said. “Exact same argument. And I didn’t have anyone to run off with.”

“You could’ve run off with Barra,” she said.

He shook his head. “Ygritte asked her to ‘help’ with Lyra. She was besotted.” 

“Besotted’s an awful big word for someone who never learned to read,” Arya said without thinking about it.

Gendry’s mouth dropped open a bit, and then he smiled broadly. Gods, it was hard to look at him when he got like that. Not just now, but all the way back to the first time she’d ever made him smile like this, full of disbelief and awe and brilliance.

It was her first year at Oldtown, and the late fall heat was causing the metal lock of the entrance to her dorm to warp, meaning the key kept sticking. After a frantic jabbing attempt fueled by the knowledge that she was absolutely about to piss her pants, her key had gotten stuck and refused to come out. In a panic she called Jon twice, and he failed to pick up both times.

It was either pee in the bushes – which still might happen – or call Gendry.

“Arya?” he asked, as if mystified by the idea she would ever call him, even though he had given her his number for emergencies. “You alright?”

“My key is stuck in the lock of the front door,” she said quickly. “And I’m going to piss my pants. And I don’t know what to do.”

“I would start with taking a trip to the bathroom,” he said wryly. 

“Please don’t take the piss out of me right now,” Arya said desperately. “I’m freaking out. What if I leave to pee and someone comes by and breaks into my dorm and robs all my dorm mates and everyone hates me for the rest of the year?”

“That would be as mental as it is unlikely,” Gendry said. “Remind me which dorm you’re in?” 

“Martell,” she said. 

“Right, I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said. “Don’t worry about the key, it happens all the time in the old dorms.”

He hung up and Arya – casting about for something to distract her from how badly she needed to pee – spotted an open common room window on the second floor. When she saw that the branches of the tree planted out front comfortably reached the open window, she made a decision. 

Five minutes later a now much less frantic Arya stood on the other side of the front door. The key stuck in the lock had locked up the door, and she was now trapped in a different and only slightly less inconvenient position. At least she wouldn’t piss herself in front of Gendry.

He stared at her in disbelief when he walked up. The metal door and thick glass panel dampened the sound of his words and she shrugged at him. He rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone.

“Gendry?” she answered, imitating his earlier greeting.

“How are you inside right now?” Gendry asked.

“I climbed in the window,” she said.

“Which window?” he asked, looking around.

“The second floor one,” Arya said. “It opens into the common room. I had to pee.”

He laughed, looking utterly baffled by her. “You broke into your dorm to pee?”

“Yes, but now I can’t get out,” she said. “And my bag is out there.”

He had smiled at that, broad and full of awe and disbelief at her antics. It would be two months until Arya fully understood the way her heart skipped a beat when he looked at her like that. And three years until she realized she loved him.

Luckily it had only taken three minutes of fiddling for Gendry to free her key from the lock and swing open the door. 

“So,” Gendry drew the syllable out for two of Barra’s heavy breaths. “Lookout?”

“Go on then,” Arya grinned.

*****

She went to grab her stash while Gendry settled Barra in his bed for a proper nap. Bran and Rickon were still in her room, Bran now sitting against the headboard while Rickon laid with his head under a pillow, sound asleep.

Arya smiled at the sight and pulled an extra blanket out of the dresser to settle over him.

“I could go for a smoke, if you’re offering,” Bran said quietly.

“Gendry and I are going to the lookout,” she said.

Bran raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to miss the apology circle,” he said.

“Sansa said it was alright,” she said, not looking up from her bag. She’d hidden the preroll pack among her tampons, because it was the last place any of her brothers would look.

“Sansa’s in rare form today,” Bran said. 

Years ago this statement would've set Arya off on a rant about their older sister, but today it made her feel incredibly tired and inconceivably old.

“You know, we expect her to do a lot for us,” she said. “She sends out reminders about birthdays and anniversaries, books flights, hosts holidays, organizes trips for the entire family. She managed our tuition payments, she _still_ manages Rickon’s.”

“When Robb decided we needed a new beach house, Sansa came out here and did viewings,” she continued. “Narrowed it down to her top three and then sent them to Robb to pick. He chose her least favorite of the three.”

Arya was speaking evenly and quietly, with no malice behind her words, but Bran still curled in on himself guiltily. 

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

“She didn’t tell anyone but me, because it was everyone else’s favorite,” Arya said, gaining a bit of steam. “Sansa’s the one who helped Dad organize Mum’s funeral, and who helped him go through her will and trust. Then when Dad died she did it all again by herself.”

“She shouldn’t’ve done that,” Bran said sadly.

“No, she shouldn’t’ve _had_ to. Jon and Robb should have helped,” she sighed heavily, “but we always expect Sansa to do it better than the rest of us, so we make her do it on her own. Gendry said they had the same fight last year?”

Bran nodded.

“It’s a leak in the roof,” Arya walked to the doorway, “Robb was being sexist and rude, and he was out of order. It’s his house, the one Sansa found for him. He should’ve called someone to fix it. Even if he was busy all year, he could have done it today.” 

Gendry had walked up behind her, watching her talk to Bran quietly from the hall. She didn’t need to turn to know it was him, or to know that he had his hands in his pockets the way he did when he didn’t want to seem intimidating or brooding.

“Just – keep that in mind tonight,” Arya said. “Alright?”

“Alright,” Bran said.

“Do you need anything before we leave?” 

“No, I’m good,” he said. 

“Alright, I’ll see you at dinner,” Arya said and turned to follow Gendry down the hall.

“I love you,” Bran called out.

She turned and smiled at her little brother, and for a moment he wasn’t twenty-three with his auburn hair too long and slightly scruffy. Seven-year-old Bran smiled back at her with bright blue eyes.

“Love you too.”

*****

“Can I ask you something?” Gendry asked as they climbed into his rental car – a hybrid that seemed somehow both too small and perfect for him. 

They had walked down the stairs and snuck out through the garage in companionable silence, Arya thinking about Sansa and Robb and all the hundreds of times they had both acted like parents for the rest of them, Gendry thinking about whatever it was he thought about these days. She knew he’d been thinking seriously because the little divot between his brows had appeared.

Arya nodded, biting back a comment about how those words rarely led to anything good. It was entirely possible the quip was about to be entirely too on the nose.

“Where the fuck did you get that sweatshirt?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turned up.

Arya smiled and giggled. “Ned gave it to me after I kept borrowing his,” she said. “It’s his favorite team in the league.”

“The Swords aren’t in the league anymore,” Gendry pointed out.

“I’m not positive Ned knows that,” she said. “He’s an odd one.”

“Smart man though,” he said, throwing an arm behind her headrest as he pulled out of the driveway. “Never thought of buying you your own clothing to stop you stealing mine.”

“You’ve always been a bit thick.” He joined in on her laughter as they started down the road. 

“You seeing him then?” Gendry asked in the silence that followed. 

Arya turned to look at him. He was staring so straight ahead she wondered if he was watching the road at all, or just doing his best to pretend to.

“Ned? No,” she scoffed, despite having considered doing just that several times over the past two years, and once this week.

“That’s…” he trailed off, steering them up a back road that would lead to the bottom of the lookout. “Good.” 

Hope, which had so long laid dormant and underfed in her heart, lifted its head and sniffed the air. 

“Are you?” Arya asked quietly, because some superstitious part of her was convinced if the question was quiet, the answer couldn’t break her heart.

“Seeing Ned Dayne? Nah,” Gendry smirked. “Never fancied him much. Might do more now, though.” 

She rolled her eyes and turned to look out the window so he wouldn’t see her face begin to flush. She didn’t have it in her to ask again, but the joke had been so clearly a deflection which had to mean –

“Not seeing anyone at the moment, actually,” he added.

“Good.” 

Gendry glanced over at her, and they shared a look that was just for them. In all their friendship, in all the time she had known him, and the hundreds of thousands of times they had caught each other’s eye or watched each other from across the room, there had never been a look like this. Arya felt her heart beat once, twice in perfect time with his. Then he had to turn his attention back to the road. 

“Barra said Elissa Farman is your favorite movie,” she said, not to fill the silence, but because she wanted to keep talking to him.

“Only because Bella says she’s too young for Orphans of the Greenblood,” he said.

“You _cannot_ show her that off-brand animated horror show,” Arya laughed. 

“It’s a great movie, a classic,” Gendry argued.

“It’s nightmare fuel,” she said. “There are whole websites dedicated to discussing how fucked up it is.”

“Great art is rarely appreciated in its time,” he said, faux sadly.

Arya rolled her eyes. “Don’t quote me to myself, especially not to defend that monstrosity,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to call Bella and tell her to throw out your copy.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

They pulled into the parking lot halfway up the large hill that overlooked Feastfires. Arya raised her eyebrows at him. _I wouldn’t?_

Gendry stuck his tongue out at her and stood out of the car. She followed, catching up to him easily. They walked side by side – Arya listing all the scenes in Orphans of the Greenblood that were inappropriate for the general public let alone children and Gendry defending them – to the top of the overlook. 

Vibrant grass dotted with wildflowers sprawled all around them, waving in the the gentle breeze. It had stopped raining and the sky was still overcast, the wine dark sea still choppy, but all around them nature thrived. 

There was an ancient looking oak tree at the top of the hill, branches hanging heavy over a single wooden bench covered in hand carved graffiti. They sat side by side, looking out over the sleepy town and the horizon far beyond it. 

Arya pulled out a preroll and her lighter, covering the tip with her hand to get it to light. She puffed several times to get it going before handing it over to Gendry, who took it apprehensively.

“Indica or sativa?” he asked just before inhaling.

“Sativa,” Arya laughed. “I know how you get with indica, mister I don’t know how to use a fork.” 

Gendry groaned and tilted his head back. 

Gendry smoked too much. Not too frequently, but too much. His big lungs in his firm chest – which nineteen-year-old Arya could no longer ignore – filled with too much smoke each time he took a hit off of Jon’s bong. 

“You are going to get _fucked_ up,” Arya told him smugly.

“It –” he began coughing heavily and Jon reached over to take the bong from him. “It’s fine,” he said once he’d finished his coughing fit.

“Mate,” Jon said, shaking his head. 

They were out on the balcony of Arya and Gendry’s brand new apartment. Jon and Gendry sat on the white plastic lawn chairs they’d found while carting Gendry’s furniture across town. Arya – fresh from the dorms with no furniture to speak of – was stretched out in the newly hung hammock.

“He always does this,” Jon informed Arya.

“I’ll look after him, don’t worry,” she said, swinging over to pat Jon on the shoulder.

“Aren’t you supposed to be telling _me_ to look out for _her?_ ” Gendry asked, voice a bit raspy from all his coughing. 

“Do I need to?” Jon asked with his exhale, smoke billowing out of his mouth and over his face.

Gendry eyed Arya as she leaned halfway out of the hammock to put her mouth over the bong while Jon lit the bowl.

“Suppose not,” he said. 

Twenty minutes later he was basically catatonic on the couch while Jon and Arya passionately debated whose football team had had the best record growing up.

“I am going to call Dad and ask him!” Arya waved her arms about. “So he can tell you you’re full of shite.”

“Mhmf,” Jon said though a mouthful of spaghetti – the only food they had in the apartment – knocking her phone out of her hand. “You can’t call him while you’re _high_.” 

“Fine,” Arya rolled her eyes. 

She turned her attention to Gendry, who was sitting misty eyed on the couch and staring at the plastic fork held loosely in his hand. “What’s with you?” she asked.

“I can’t remember how to use it,” Gendry muttered.

“Use what?” Jon asked, concerned.

“Oh my gods he forgot how to use his fork,” Arya hopped up to her feet on the couch and pointed down at him. 

“I’m so hungry,” Gendry said despondently while Arya cackled at him.

“It’s okay,” Jon said sympathetically, patting Gendry on the back. “I’ll feed you.”

Arya still had the video she’d taken of Jon feeding a heavy limbed Gendry tucked away in a folder in her laptop that she hadn’t opened since getting back from Braavos.

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” Gendry asked, the wind blowing his hair back and making his eyes water enough to have the deep blue sparkling.

“I’m never going to let _anyone_ forget that,” Arya laughed.

They talked and smoked as the sun dipped low in the sky. Arya talked about the pyramids of Old Ghis and the grant she was hoping to get to study their assembly, and Gendry excitedly explained how he thought it would be done. He listened to her every correction and passing comment about the supplies and technology they likely had, and adapted his strategy until he had her convinced that winches were the way to go. 

“Robert wants to give me money,” he said abruptly. His eyes were red and he had gotten a touch too high as always.

“Do you want to take it?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t like taking handouts. I want to earn what I have.”

“There’s an argument to be made that you spent your childhood earning it,” Arya said. 

Gendry tilted his head toward her. “Yeah?”

It was her turn to shrug. “Everything would be different for you if he’d acted like your father, way back then,” she said. “You might not have been in foster care. You could’ve gone to a posh school like me.”

“I might not’ve roomed with Jon if I’d gone to a posh school,” Gendry said quietly. “Might’ve gotten into KLU.”

Arya started. She’d forgotten his one time ambition of going to King’s Landing University, the school up on a hill he’d grown up in the shadow of. 

“That’s true,” she said.

She turned her head away from the landscape to find him watching her, eyes blazing. His eyes traveled over her face quickly, as if doing his best to memorize it. Their fingertips were millimeters apart on the bench.

“Wouldn’t’ve been worth it,” he said. His voice was gentle and full of something she recognized, but was too afraid to name.

Delicately and without looking away from her face he moved his pinky over hers. She felt the contact in every cell of her body, in every nerve and deep in her bones.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Gendry asked quietly.

“We were excavating on the Isle of the Gods,” Arya said, voice shaking slightly. “There was this… temple of sorts, for people who worshipped the god of death – like, every god of death. It was fascinating and then I heard there were still followers…”

She dragged her eyes away from his face and looked out into the open air. Lights were dotting on along the streets and in houses as twilight slipped over Feastfires.

“I didn’t even think about it as being dangerous,” she continued. “I just… I was so caught up in the possibility of hearing about their practices first hand. It was fine for a while. A friend of a friend of a friend of someone supervising the dig put me in touch with a woman. We got on, until we didn’t.”

The memory billowed around her, a veil separating her from Gendry for a moment. Arya shut her eyes tightly in an attempt to stay here, in this moment with him. The feel of Gendry gently interweaving his fingers through hers brought her back and allowed her to go on.

“It was two days before we were supposed to leave for Oldtown. I hadn’t told her about it ending… I didn’t think it mattered all that much,” Arya sighed at her own naiveté. “We were walking back from the bar we usually met at and I told her, and she got _so angry_. I didn’t even realize what had happened at first – it felt so strange.”

It had been adrenaline that saved her life. Adrenaline and the reaction time she’d developed from football and self-defense classes at the gym.

“I just ran. I shoved her into a canal and ran,” she said. “I think she expected me to die right there, but I ran back onto a main street and the first person that saw me called an ambulance. I passed out before they got there, and when I woke up I was out of surgery and Jon was sitting there. And I remember thinking that I must not’ve been dying, if Jon had come alone.”

Gendry squeezed her hand tightly twice. Arya squeezed back and wiped the tears out of the corner of her eyes with her free hand. 

“Arya, I’m so, _so_ sorry,” he said, his voice rough and heavy with emotion.

She shook her head minutely. “It’s – I’m fine, really,” she started. Then all at once Arya couldn’t bare to lie to him about this too. “No I’m not. Gods, I was so fucking stupid and cocky. And then everyone kept saying how _lucky_ I was. But I don’t _feel_ lucky. I lost an ovary and my uterus is full of scar tissue now. Inhospitable.”

She ducked her head down to rest her forehead on her knees, which she’d pulled up to her chest while talking. 

“It’s not like I had my heart set on having kids,” Arya said into her knees. “I’m not even done with my PhD yet, and I _know_ I can adopt when I’m ready. But –”

Gendry released her hand and shifted closer, gathering her up in his arms like she’d gathered Barra earlier that day. She let out a single, choked sob.

“I wish I could erase every bad thing that’s ever happened to you,” he said into her hair. “I would do _anything_ …” 

She might’ve added him to that list as her plane had touched down at LAS. Or when she heard him arrive late with Barra. But Arya could never put him on her list, not really. He had broken her heart two years ago, but it had been his to break for _years_. 

“I know,” she assured him. 

They stayed like that for a while, wrapped around each other protectively. If Gendry wished he could erase the bad things that had happened to her, Arya had prayed for it. Prayed to the old gods and the new that he could understand he was worth more than every Baratheon there was combined, prayed that he would know he did have a family, that it was _her_. And Jon, and all the Starks. 

When they finally pulled apart, Arya rubbed at her face and laughed heavily.

“I thought we came out here to _avoid_ emotional conversations,” she said in reference to the apology circle her siblings were no doubt still stuck in. 

“Oh is _that_ why?” Gendry smiled. 

“Why did you come out here then?” Arya nudged his shoulder. 

Gendry draped his arm on the back of the bench, around her shoulders. 

“This,” he said simply, waving his hand over the twinkling lights of the town and the endless expanse of dark water beyond it. 

It was beautiful and it felt like it belonged to them, and them alone. Arya turned her head to tell him so, but Gendry was already tilting her chin toward him with a delicate, firm touch. 

A thousand memories of a thousand different moments of him and her – of them – played in her head in an instant. Hundreds of inside jokes, silly fights, serious discussion, exasperated sighs, reluctant goodnights, and enthusiastic greetings played out in one glorious, endless loop. 

She saw him laughing, crying, angry, shouting, singing, smiling, fixing their garbage disposal, tossing her his keys, bringing her soup when she was sick, frowning through an anesthetic haze after his appendix was removed, cackling as she threw the fake spider he’d tucked under her pillow at him, and standing in the snow for the first time with a look of absolute wonder on his face. 

And then he kissed her. 

One of them, or both of them, let out a soft noise of relief, of _finally_. 

Gendry moved his hand from her chin to cup her jaw as their lips began to move with more confidence. It wasn’t frenzied or brash but it was full of passion and longing. And it was sweet, so very sweet. 

They were both smiling, even as Arya tried desperately not to because she wanted to keep kissing him in earnest, but everything was bubbling up in her. Her heart was full of helium and glitter and love. _Gods_ she was so full of love.

Gendry’s smile finally made it untenable to keep kissing and they pulled back giggling and reconnected. His eyes were tracing her face again, but leisurely with the promise of being able to take his time. 

Then his stomach growled loudly, breaking the silence in the summer air.

Laughter burst out of her at the noise. She threw back her head and laughed until her face was red and her muscles hurt because she was so very happy.

“You’re ruining the moment,” Gendry laughed. 

“ _I’m_ ruining it?” she wheezed. 

“You could’ve ignored it,” he said, his tone ruined by the cheek-aching smile on his face.

“ _Ignored_ it? Your stomach is practically talking,” Arya said. “Feed me, Gendry.”

She pushed herself up and off the bench, leading the way back down the hill because she couldn’t have him starving to death on her now. 

“I didn’t have lunch,” he grumbled as he followed her down the hill. 

They laughed and joked on the way down and unrolled the car windows for the drive back, singing to every song on the radio, with Gendry singing especially enthusiastically along with the ones he didn’t know. The lyrics he devised were always half-formed and a little stupid, but Arya would’ve gladly had them writ large across her every limb. 

*****

The house was full of laughter and love when they arrived back for dinner. Apologies had been made and accepted, and forgiveness permeated throughout the siblings. Sansa caught her eye questioningly a few times – when Gendry complained loudly that she was in the way with his hand on her low back and a smile on his face, or when she snatched Jon’s garlic bread off his plate to give to Gendry – but Arya ignored them. 

She knew this all had a time limit on it, but the idea no longer felt crushing. 

They talked about it that night after everyone else had gone to bed. They had met on the back deck again, but this time it was in hopes of finding the other. Arya curled up next to him on a wide seat and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I’ve got three years left at Oldtown,” she said quietly.

Gendry stopped tracing circles on her shoulder momentarily before resuming. “My job’s in Storm’s End,” he said regretfully. 

“I know,” Arya assured him quickly. “I’m not a big gesture person anymore, believe me. Maybe… This can be a week, and we’ll have another eventually. And figure it out.”

They stayed suspended in silence while Gendry considered his words. “About that night,” he said slowly. 

Arya pressed her hand over his heart. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said. “Not tonight anyway.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Alright.”

They stayed outside a while longer, talking quietly and catching up on everything they could. Gendry listened more than he spoke, which Arya knew between the two of them meant he was thinking. He would share his thoughts with her when he was ready, the door between them open again. 

He walked her to her door, pretending it was the end of a date and whispering that he had a really nice time tonight and that it was really nice getting to know her. 

“I’m _so_ _glad_ we have the same coffee order,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh my _gods_ ,” Arya said, playing at exasperation. 

He grinned and moved closer to her, walking her back into the wall right beside her door. Arya tittered and slug her arms around his neck, and kissed him. 

They smiled less this time. Instead, their lips met with a nearly all consuming passion. Gendry brought a hand up to the back of her neck to tilt her head before tugging lightly at the hair at the nape of her neck. Her responding sigh allowed him to part her lips with his tongue, and she responded enthusiastically. 

The hand not at the back of her neck began to travel up and down her side, skimming the waters before finding port at the small of her back. Arya moved to tangle one hand in his hair, the other she moved under his arm to come up and press against his shoulder-blade. 

Then he moved his knee between her legs and bit lightly on her lower lip, and Arya had an entirely different reason to invoke the gods. 

But they were not at the end of a date, they were in the hallway of her family’s vacation home, with all of her siblings – and their children – and one of his within shouting distance. So instead of hooking her fingers in his belt loop and pulling him into her bedroom she slowed the movement of her lips.

Gendry took the signal, slowing his kisses but making them no less searing or full of purpose. He rested his forehead on hers when they finally broke apart. Arya stood, eyes closed and breathing in the moment. He moved his hands to her hips, his grip as steadying as he was. 

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Arya said, earning herself his awed smile. 

Gendry chuckled and released her. “Not going to wait three days?” he asked.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” she giggled. “I guess I’ll call you sometime next week then.”

“Wouldn’t want me to think you fancy me,” he nodded. 

“Exactly.” 

He tapped her nose and then kissed her again – chastely, barely more than a peck – before walking down the hall to his room. He turned around just before walking into his room, like he wanted to check she was still standing there. 

It was too dark for him to see the smile on her face, so she lifted one hand. _Hello. I’m here_.

She thought she saw him cock his head to the side, and then he raised one too. _Me too_.

*****

Thursday passed too quickly. The storm passed in the night and that morning was – at least in Arya’s opinion – the most beautiful one yet. The sky was clear and the white sand stretched in unbroken calmness to a sea nearly as blue as Gendry’s eyes. 

They spent the entire day out at the water’s edge. Everyone’s moods were lifted, and Sansa and Robb chatted amicably while they distributed snacks. Cat, Ben, and Barra discovered a new game as the dogs had been allowed to join them on the beach. 

“Go! Go! Go!” Cat hollered, hopping up and down furiously as Shaggydog swam after the tennis ball Rickon tossed into the waves.

When Shaggydog emerged from the waves he shook his fur to dry it off, and the three of them squealed with delight as they were splashed. Then it was a mad dash to get the tennis ball back from Shaggydog. He was having the time of his life, no clue why Rickon had him run around for a bit before dropping the ball but delighted to be doing it. 

“Ocean Dada,” Lyra tugged on Jon’s hand, pointing her plump one at the water. 

“Maybe Yaya will go with you?” Jon tried, having only just returned from playing the ‘doggy game’ with Ghost and Summer. All three of them were resting – exhausted and feeling their age heavily on their shoulders – in the shade of an umbrella. “Or Uncle Theon?”

“The audacity,” Arya said, looking up from her book. 

Theon gave an exaggerated snore and dropped his e-reader in his haste to pretend to be asleep.

“He immediately kicked you under that bus,” Bran laughed. 

“No,” Lyra said. “Dada.” 

Bran and Arya made exaggerated ‘ha’ sounds at Jon as he stood and let Lyra drag him down to the water.

“Hey Yaya,” Gendry asked. 

He was sitting on a lawn chair directly next to her towel. Every so often he would spray her back or side with sunblock and then pretend to be writing dirty words in it. Or she hoped he was pretending.

“Hm?” Arya asked.

“What page are you on?” 

“Two thirty-five, wh –” Gendry stood and scooped her up in his arms, tossing her over his shoulder. “Put me down you overgrown grumpkin!”

“You get that?” Gendry asked Bran.

Arya wriggled and pinched at Gendry’s side to no effect.

“Two thirty-five,” Bran said and lifted his hand in a two fingered salute. 

“Cheers,” he said, and then he ran to the water. 

Arya shrieked and laughed, and she could hear her family laughing as well as Gendry ran into chest deep water and tossed her into the waves. Arya broke the surface smiling so wide and so hard it hurt, and it was the best kind of hurt she’d ever felt. 

“You brute!” Arya shouted, laughing and splashing sea water at him. “I just dried off!” 

“My apologies, m’lady,” Gendry said with an exaggerated bow that left his face close enough to the water for her to dunk his head under. 

He stood, spluttering and smiling like an idiot. 

“Serves you,” she laughed. Then, emboldened by the warm water and blinding sun, she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him into a quick kiss. 

“I didn't know _that_ was an option,” Gendry said stupidly, looking amazed and confused all at once. “I’ve been spending all day _talking_ to people.” 

He leaned down again and Arya pressed his face away with an open hand. “I’m not snogging you on the beach in front of my entire family,” she said.

“Technically we’ve moved from beach to ocean,” he grinned.

“Compelling argument, but still not going to happen,” Arya said. She grinned. “Or at least not at this exact moment.” 

“I can work with that,” he said, letting his hands wander a bit before seizing her around the middle and throwing her up in the air again.

They passed the rest of the afternoon like that: antics and laughter and warm water followed by laying out on a towel, before starting over again. And whenever they thought they could get away with it Gendry would kiss her or Arya would kiss him.

And then Rickon was waving them down after they’d walked down the beach – passionately debating theories about a sci-fi show it turned out they’d both gotten really into – and Arya knew this was the beginning of the end. 

“Oi! Bear and maiden fair!” Rickon yelled. “We’ve got to head out in twenty minutes!” 

Gendry released her hand. “You’re leaving tonight?” he asked, surprised.

“Shit,” Arya said. “I honestly forgot. Fuck. _Fuck_.”

“I can’t believe you’re the smartest person I know,” he shook his head and laughed. “Go run and shower, I’ll bring your things in from the beach.”

“You’re wonderful, you know?” Arya smiled fondly.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and ran off. Arya flew through her shower and stuffed clothing into her bag haphazardly. She threw on leggings and a shirt at random, grabbing a sweater for the plane and throwing her hair up. Rickon and Arya made the rounds of goodbyes in the living room, both vibrating with low grade anxiety as the possibility of missing their flights loomed larger.

“Goodbye my sweets,” Arya said, gathering up Lyra, Ben, and Cat. She kissed them on their foreheads and tried not to tear up in their tiny arms. “And you,” she cooed to Duncan in Jon’s arms.

Arya knelt down beside Barra. “And you little dove,” she said, hugging her too. 

Rickon replaced her by the children and she went to say goodbye to the adults. 

“I’ll see you all soon!” Arya promised. She made the rounds, hugging along the semi-circle of her family. 

Sansa squeezed her extra tightly. “We _will_ be talking about this next week,” she whispered.

“Obviously,” Arya smiled and kissed her on the cheek. 

Robb clapped her on the back warmly and reminded her to call more often. Jon ruffled her hair and called her ‘little sister’ before telling her to call him more often than she called Robb. Bran hugged her warmly and loudly confirmed their standing Wednesday night call, to great uproar and accusations of lying from the other Starks. 

Theon hugged her warmly, Jeyne sweetly, and Ygritte with a brusque force Arya’d come to expect from their goodbyes. 

Gendry tilted his head when she turned to him. “Bit like leaving sleep away camp,” he smiled.

“When did you ever go to camp?” she laughed.

“I’ve watched an after school special or two,” he said. 

“Are you going to be stupid all the way through our goodbye?” Arya asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Probably,” he said, and reached forward to hug her. “See you next summer,” he said when they broke apart. 

“I’ll write you a letter,” she said. She tried to keep her voice light and not to think about how true his words likely were. 

And then it was time to leave. Everyone came outside to wave at the car, persistently waving as Rickon was forced to perform a thirty point turn in his rental car and only laughing a bit. Arya unrolled the window and blew dramatic kisses to her assembled loved ones.

Behind Jon, Gendry caught her eye and twitched his brows up, along with a sad smile that pulled down the corner of his mouth. _Goodbye_. 

*****

Rickon drove down the highway faster than either would ever admit to their older siblings, windows rolled down and stereo bumping an old 70s synth-heavy song by _MHYSA_. His girlfriend –

“She’s not my _girlfriend_ , Arya. _Gods_. She’s just – we’re casual and friends.”

Was extremely into the band, as was Arya – who threw back her head and laughed at Rickon’s words, because she’d heard that song before.

They were flying out of Casterly Rock, Rickon returning back to White Harbor for the summer job she strongly suspected was only an excuse to stay in near his casual friend without raising suspicion from his siblings. Arya had booked her return flight to align with his because he was leaving first, back when she was dreading the trip and seeing Gendry again. It was strange – but also very predictable probably – to think about how eager she’d been to escape him nought by five days ago. 

Rickon drove the rental car along the coastal highway and they sang along to a playlist he’d made for his very casual friend – a playlist he turned up to the maximum volume when Arya mentioned it was a very secondary school thing to do for your crush – while sunlight reflected on the water around them. 

When the next song ended, Rickon reached over to turn the volume low. Arya looked over at him, and felt her heart catch. He looked so much like their father in that moment, his face serious and eyes – though his were the light blue Tully eyes – firm with decision.

“Bran told us what you said about Sansa,” he said. 

“Us?” 

“Robb, Jon, and me,” he said. “He yelled at us.”

“Bran doesn’t yell,” Arya scoffed. “Sometimes he’ll _exclaim_ or shout answers during Jeopardy reruns.”

“No, he definitely yelled at us,” Rickon said. “Was a bit frightening.”

Arya leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “He yelled?” she asked.

Rickon nodded. “Properly freaked out Robb,” he said. 

“What’d they say?” she asked, curious and apprehensive.

“We all felt like absolute shite,” he said matter-of-factly. “Don’t think any of us had ever really thought about how much Sansa does – how much we make her do,” he added quickly.

“Well… good,” she said. “Maybe Robb won’t be such a prick about the leak next year.”

“He called someone to come fix it right after we talked.”

“Holy fuck – Bran _yelled_ ,” Arya gasped.

“I’m saying,” Rickon said. 

They drove for another two miles in the quiet, listening to part of the song playing and thinking their own thoughts. Then Rickon cleared his throat.

“You know,” he said slowly. “Sansa’s looked after us a lot, but… after Mum _you_ took me to practice and went all my matches. And you helped me with my homework when I ran off my tutor.”

“And forged Dad’s signature on all your detention slips,” she laughed.

Rickon smiled and nodded. “You looked after me,” he said, voice firm and serious. “Sansa’s done a lot, but you did that.”

Arya swallowed thickly then grinned at her brother. “Getting emotional, are we?” she asked.

“Yeah, well, I love you or whatever,” he grumbled. He looked over at her. “And you’re the one about to cry.”

“You’re mistaken,” she said, rubbing at her eyes. “But I love you too.”

Rickon smiled and turned the music back up. They sang and laughed the rest of the way to Casterly Rock International Airport. Rickon dropped her off on his way to return the rental car since she was in imminent danger of missing her flight, which was boarding in a little over twenty minutes. 

They hugged dramatically by the trunk of the car, Rickon doing his best to pick her up and twirl her around while she had her bag halfway on her shoulder. 

“Text me when you land,” she commanded, ruffling Rickon’s hair.

“Yeah, alright,” Rickon said. 

She wanted to stay and say more. That he shouldn’t stay ‘casual friends’ with Lyanna Mormont because he was afraid of what she would say if he asked to be more, that sometimes being honest meant getting broken, that no matter how impossible it felt he _would_ put himself back together.

She wanted to tell him that as broken as she thought she’d been, this week had shown her that her cracks had been filled in with gold. Not because Gendry kissed her, but because she had let him. Arya wanted to tell her littlest brother that there were all kinds of bravery, and none of them were harder than emotional vulnerability, but she _knew_ he had that strength inside of him. 

Arya wanted to remind him that they were of the North, and it didn’t mean they were cold or distant, it meant they were strong. Remind him that they were Starks, and they were built to survive. 

But her flight would be boarding soon and she didn’t have the time.  Instead, Arya pulled him into another tight hug. 

When she released him, his eyes were watering and so were hers. They smiled at each other identically and then she turned away and jogged off to the security check-in. 

Her flight back to Oldtown was much more relaxed than her flight to Lannisport. Arya ordered herself a tiny bottle of white wine to toast her successful survival of a week she’d dreaded even as she and Ned walked six miles through the tall grass of the Dothraki sea in search of water. 

Arya’s movements and actions after landing followed the same pattern as those after landing at LAS. As soon as they were allowed, she took her phone off of airplane mode and opened up the family group chat. 

**Rickon:** this bird in line at security just pulled out an entire bottle of wine from her bag downed half of it and tossed the rest

**Rickon:** i think i’m in love

**Rickon:** oh my gods

**Rickon:** holy shit

**Rickon:** it’s dacey mormont

**Robb:** Sounds like Dacey. 

**Jon:** Don’t let Lyanna hear you say you’re in love with her sister

**Theon:** Nah I say go for it

**Theon:** Sansa I once saw Arya break a bloke’s nose and immediately fell in love

**Sansa:** As you should

**Theon:** See?

**Rickon:** cheers

**Bran:** No one tell Gendry we’ve stopped playing hide and seek

**Robb:** Is that why he’s been in the pantry?

**Jon:** Yes and if you ruin this for us, I will never forgive you

Arya smirked at the idea of the great idiot squeezed into the pantry closet, waiting for the little ones to come find him. She could exactly imagine his thought process as he tried to work out if the spot had been too difficult, and whether or not he should come out.

**Arya:** Landed safe and sound in Oldtown! I already miss you all xxxx

**Sansa:** xxxxxxx

**Jon:** We’re all heartbroken without our Yaya

**Bran:** Don’t forget to call us between picking fights with your old professors

**Robb:** And eat more. Proper food as well, not takeaway. 

**Arya:** Love you louts too! Talk soon

She rolled her eyes and walked off to baggage claim. The closer she got to her apartment, the more tired she grew. The days spent in the sun and surf had sapped all of the energy that had remained in her after returning from Essos. She fell asleep so deeply on the shuttle back to the city center that she must’ve snored. 

She was awoken right as the bus pulled to a stop, not by the ceasing of the movement, but by the ringing of her phone.

“Hello?” she asked groggily.

“Do you have the notes from our interview with the dosh khaleen? And I need to know how long you’re expecting to take to collate the information on birthing practices,” Ned Dayne said, speaking quickly and bluntly as always. “What time should we meet up tomorrow?”

“Ned?” Arya blinked around her and stood as she realized the rest of the passengers were exiting the bus. 

“Obviously,” he said. “You’re back right? Your flight landed on time.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, a little irritated but not all that surprised by his audacity.

“I looked it up,” Ned said simply. “You told me not to bother you while you were on vacation, so I needed to know what time your vacation ended.”

“Right, well,” Arya sighed. “A lot of people would consider this still part of my vacation.”

“A lot of people are stupid, so that doesn’t really help,” Ned said. 

Arya snorted. “Have you considered chilling the fuck out?”

“No,” he said simply.

There was silence as Ned waited for Arya to answer his questions and Arya struggled to claim her bag with one hand and half of her attention. 

“I’m not even back at my apartment yet,” Arya said once she’d managed to sling her backpack on. “You’re going to have to try again later.”

Ned made a noise of disapproval, then sighed. “How was the thing then?” 

“Wonderful,” Arya said. “I got to see all my nieces and nephews. And I got to piss indoors the whole week.”

“Obviously I’m talking about the other thing,” he said. 

Arya made her way to the nearest subway entrance. “It was fi – actually,” she caught herself. “It was… helpful. I got closure, I think.”

Ned scoffed. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Those are just words.”

“Everything’s words,” Arya snapped as she swiped her Metrocard. “I’m going home, don’t talk to me until Monday morning.” 

“What if I stop by tonight to pick up your notes –”

“Ned, if you come to my apartment this weekend I’m going to fucking tase you,” she said firmly.

“Alright, but –”

“Goodbye, Ned.” Arya hung up the phone and boarded the train to her apartment. 

*****

Her apartment was overly hot and stuffy when she threw open the front door, arms overburdened with mail. It was dark and stale, even after she flicked on the solitary overhead light. The empty off-white walls were harsh under the slightly too yellow light. Arya sighed heavily and shut the door with her boot. 

Her apartment looked like a stock photo of depression. All of the nice furniture had belonged to Gendry, who hated IBBEN furniture with a burning passion. It was the one area he splurged in, and she had indulged it all as he replaced the shite unfinished pine pieces she bought. 

They had agreed over the course of two emails that he would take everything he had bought, which left Arya with a bed frame, loveseat, dresser – which she no longer owned – and one rickety coffee table. 

She’d moved into the studio apartment after getting back from Braavos, and hadn’t had it in her to decorate it. Then she was off to the field again and it didn’t make any sense to fill her house with things she wouldn’t see for the next several months, then she had come back and hadn’t had it in her to decorate it and…

Now it was two years later and Arya was somehow living worse than when she was in the dorms. 

She sighed and walked into the kitchen to open her freezer, because the last time she’d been gone it had iced over and leaked into fridge and now she was paranoid about it. It wasn’t iced over, but it was empty, as was the fridge. The plates and appliances had been dusty when she returned from Essos, along with most surfaces in the apartment. It had taken an entire day to de-disgust everything.

Now it was all clean and empty. Her life in bare bones and scaffolding. 

Arya sighed again and started opening windows to air everything out before – because she felt like she’d earned it – turning on the air conditioner. 

Her backpack stayed by the front door and she collapsed onto her bed. She was hungry, and it was hot, and it was so lonely to come back to this place alone. Her laptop had died on the plane, meaning she would have to get up and get it out of her bag, and then charge it until it got back up to its minimum charge if she wanted to do anything but stare up at the popcorn ceiling.

Arya hated popcorn ceilings. Not passionately or with any particular purpose, but she had always found then lacking. It wasn’t something she initially realized, but two years into living with Gendry she had taken a spare hour to stare up at the ceiling from their rug – now her rug – and really given it some thought.

She had been looking up at the ceiling ever since Gendry had texted her, letting her know that he wouldn’t be needing her to call him pretending their apartment was flooding. An offer she made for every one of his Bumble dates, and acted on twice.

Because of fucking course Gendry would use Bumble. He liked the idea that the woman messaged first, so he wouldn’t worry about coming on to someone who wasn’t interested and making them uncomfortable.

Because of course he did. 

Originally she’d been watching TV – a show that she was supposed to be watching with Gendry that she was now determined to be four episodes ahead in in a perverse form of punishment – but now she was staring up at the ceiling and waiting for him to either come home or tell her not to wait up. He hardly ever brought women back to the apartment, which was handy because Arya had absolutely no idea what she would do if he did.

**Meera:** Why don’t you come over instead of torturing yourself?

**Carellen:** Or we could go out

**Carellen:** Nothing like tequila for a broken heart

**Arya:** I don’t feel like doing anything

**Meera:** At least watch something on the telly 

**Carellen:** Let Arya have her existential moment

**Arya:** Thank you Car

**Meera:** What are you going to do if he goes home with her but doesn’t text you first? Stay out there all night? 

**Arya:** Maybe

She was saved response by the sound of Gendry unlocking the front door. Arya jolted upright and scrambled to her feet, cursing slightly as she dropped her phone onto the hardwood floor in her haste. 

“It’s just me,” Gendry called out. “You don’t have to run off to your room.”

“I wasn’t going to _run_ ,” Arya said, arranging herself on the couch so she gave off a careful air of nonchalance. “It would’ve been a fast walk at most.”

“Good to know,” he sighed, walking into the hall. 

He was wearing a sweater his sister had gotten him for his last birthday, that they had deemed his date night sweater. They being Carellen, Meera, and her. She and Gendry barely discussed anything surrounding the other’s dates.

He walked into the kitchen then reappeared in the hall with two opened beer bottles. He walked over and collapsed next to her on the couch, sighing again.

“Damn, that bad?” Arya asked, accepting the offered bottle. 

Gendry took a long pull from his bottle and clicked on the TV. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said shortly. 

She turned to look at him more closely. His brows were furrowed and his eyes stormy, his mouth twisted into an angry frown. He was _pissed_. Not irritated, or tired, or frustrated. Gendry was furious.

Arya took a long drink of her own, before setting the bottle on the coffee table – on the coasters he insisted they use – and drawing her knees up to her chest.

It was horrible to be so pleased that something had gone wrong on his date. Horrible. Arya kept reminding herself even as she fought a smile.

“She recognized me,” he spat as the characters on screen realized one of them was a mole. 

“From your profile? That’s no –”

“Not tonight,” he snapped. “Alright? Just… not tonight.”

Arya stood abruptly and walked into the kitchen. She could hear Gendry swearing quietly at himself, and knew he would be running a hand through his hair and frowning harder. She opened the freezer – which they needed to go through again because it was overfull – and grabbed a pint of rocky-road which was objectively the worst flavor, but was also his favorite. 

She returned to the couch armed with the ice cream and two spoons, one of which she thrust at him. 

Gendry ate the first two spoonfuls guiltily and while continuously attempting to catch her eye. Arya stared straight ahead, waiting for him to speak.

“Sorry,” he huffed at last. 

“Stupid,” she said, but smiled at him tightly when she did it. “So, she recognized you?”

“Apparently I look just like him when he was my age,” Gendry said darkly. “They did some kind of retrospective on his military career before becoming King Regent and she recognized me from the magazine spread.” 

“I’m sure that’s not why –”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just… want to be _here_ , with you right now,” he said. He returned his attention to the TV and squinted at the screen. “What episode is this?”

It had been a convenient excuse for her pink cheeks and stupid smile. Gendry managed to convince her to rewatch the episodes he’d missed, but only after he changed into sweats and an old shirt and gotten cuddly while he whinged at her. They’d ended up with his head in her lap, her hand dangerously close to carding through his hair. 

When she finally dragged herself to her room she checked her phone again out of habit. 

**Meera:** Babes you can’t live like that

On her bed in her studio apartment Arya exhaled heavily and trilled her lips. “I can’t live like this,” she announced to the barren room.

*****

Arya spent the next two weeks biking between her apartment and Hightower Library, with the occasional stop at Ned’s apartment or a coffee shop. She had no classes on her teaching schedule this summer session, which mean that largely she set her own schedule. This came in handy, as assembling the proper adult furniture from the website advertised on all of the podcasts she listened to proved to be extremely difficult on her own.

It was worth it, if only to stop hearing Ned ask –

“Damn, you live like this?” 

Every time he came over to hers. 

Now she had a real table with two real chairs, an interesting looking tiled coffee table, a new bedside table, a bookshelf – instead of stacks of books in the corners – and two new lamps. Arya had also finally hung up the posters and framed photos that had been piled up under her bed for two years. 

She even had big plans to buy a shoe rack and wall hooks for her bike that Sunday. 

Currently it was Saturday and Arya was biking home from the gym in the early morning light, talking to Robb about the relative merits of fresh cranberry relish over cranberry sauce.

“You understand Feast Day is literal months away, right?” Arya asked.

“I’m trying to be thorough,” Robb said. “The goal is to have Sansa do nothing for four days.” 

“I’m onboard with the goal, I just think you might be getting ahead of yourself,” she said, leaning into her turn as she biked down her street. 

“This is a big deal,” he said. “Bran yelled –”

“Bran yelled at you, yes. You’ve said,” she said. “What I’m saying is that the type of cranberry-based side dish you’ll serve isn’t the logistics you should be focusing on right now.”

“You think I should be researching goose preparations?” Robb asked.

“I think you should start with getting a headcount,” Arya said. “For instance, I should be able to come this year.”

“Is that because Gendry might not come?” he asked.

“Gendry’s not going?” Arya asked, trying her best not to sound disappointed. 

“He’s not sure,” Robb said. “I called him to ask about the cranberries and he said he wasn’t sure if he would be able to come this year. And he said you preferred the relish which is why I called you.”

“Well, he was right about that,” she said, pulling up to her apartment. She grunted slightly when she lifted her bike onto her shoulder to climb the stairs. “You should ask Rickon if he wants to invite Lyanna.”

“Oh and then we could invite Dacey,” he said.

“No, stupid,” Arya snapped. “Then we let them go off to spend time together.”

“Are you bringing someone then?” Robb asked.

Arya fumbled with her key and talked through her difficulty with it to avoid having to answer. It wouldn’t have worked on Sansa and probably wouldn’t have worked on Jon, but Robb had always been a bit too easy to fool. 

She set her bike by the door and said goodbye to her brother. The apartment smelled like fresh flowers – she had taken cuttings of the neighboring house’s jasmine – and clean linen. The early morning light filtered in through her new gauzy white curtains, and her fridge was teaming with proper food – plus quite a few takeaway containers. 

Ned was meant to be coming over later that evening. Allegedly he didn’t want to work, only watch the footie game and have a beer, but Arya didn’t even slightly believe him. Partially because Ned had pulled this exact stunt before to trick her into rewrites, but mostly because he had asked to watch the Wolves vs Kingsguard game with her when neither team was playing tonight. 

Still, he promised to bring beer and she’d actually already finished her rewrites, so Arya had agreed. Similarly she’d allowed Meera to invite herself as well, since she offered to bring cookies and had decided to pursue Ned.

Arya munched on a snack of crackers dipped in hummus – because she’d run out of pita chips already – and wandered about, cleaning up a little more than she would normally so Ned could be properly impressed by the state of her apartment.

It grew too warm after her shower for the windows to be reasonably open. Arya splayed out on her bed naked and enjoying the air conditioner against her bare skin. After a few minutes of basking, she pulled on a rust colored linen romper with tie straps and large buttons and pulled out the adult coloring book she’d bought last week on a whim.

With the experimental pop of _The Others_ ’ latest album playing in the background, Arya made her way through most of the first intricate scene – the botanical gardens in Highgarden – by the time three in the afternoon rolled around. 

Her hair was dry and waving above her shoulders. Twice already today she’d contemplated cutting it, and decided that she’d as Meera to do it tonight. 

Just as Arya was considering setting up some kind of cheeseboard – albeit one with limited variety – the buzzer rang. She glanced at the clock and sighed. It was only three-forty, which meant Ned was two hours early. Not unheard of, but extremely irritated as they’d agreed he stick to only being an hour early at most the last time he’d done this.

She marched over to the intercom and pressed the ‘Talk’ button firmly. 

“You know,” she said, slightly irritated, “coming over _early_ to pretend to watch the game isn’t going to trick me into revisions any better than coming over _on time_ to pretend to watch the game.”

She continued with her thumb on the button, not allowing him the opportunity to respond. “You can come up, but only because I fancy a beer and I don’t have any,” Arya finished.

She jabbed the ‘ENTRY’ button and buzzed him into the building. The lift was still out, which Ned always complained endlessly about. Arya hoped he sweated loads on the way up, and considered shutting off her air-conditioner as punishment for his early arrival.

Ned knocked much more politely and deliberately than he usually did, probably in an effort to seem respectful as he violated the work-life boundaries she’d drawn. 

Arya rolled her eyes and threw open the door, and lost the ability to speak. 

Gendry stood in front of her in a black shirt from a _The Others_ concert they’d gone to for her birthday once and jeans, looking apprehensive, a bit sheepish, but determined. 

He looked gorgeous, heart-breaking. Maybe it was because she finally knew what his broad, rough hands felt like around her hips, or because his thick black hair looked windswept and his dark blue eyes were like the endless expanse of the sea.

Probably, though, it was because his face had shifted from nervous to overjoyed when she met his eye. 

“Hi,” Gendry said, smiling broadly.

“Hi,” Arya said, feeling like she’d missed out on something important.

“I know you’re not a big gesture person anymore,” he said all in a rush, “but I’m making one.”

Arya blinked at him dumbly, not entirely certain she wasn’t hallucinating or having an extremely elaborate and detailed dream.

“Could I come in?” he asked. She wished he would stop smiling at her like that, or maybe come out and tell her what in the name of all seven fucking hells he was doing here.

Arya nodded and stepped to the side, squeezing herself against her bike to allow him access to her apartment. He walked in comfortably, like he belonged in her space and knew it. 

He turned to face her when she shut the door, and her brain continued short-circuiting. 

Gendry was here, in her apartment, standing in the middle of the room and looking at her like he’d just watched her scatter the stars in the sky.

“Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath. He pulled out his phone and swiped through it. “I have – hang on –”

“Did you… make notes for this?” Arya asked bemusedly. 

“Can you – I’m _trying_ to have a moment here,” Gendry huffed. He slipped his phone back into his pocket.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Should I sit? Or…”

“Whatever you want,” he said just as quickly. “I’m going to,” he gestured at his feet, “it’s how I – practiced.”

Arya sat on her couch and crossed her legs, biting back a comment about him practicing. She nodded at him to start when she’d settled.

“Right,” Gendry ran a hand through his hair, “right. I’m not – this isn’t something I’m good with, yeah? I’m not good at talking to people. Never have been. But then I met you – and in the beginning you were a brat and a little kid and I didn’t actually pay much attention to you – but then you came here and we could talk.”

Arya smiled fondly. He was awful, awful, _awful_ at small talk with people he didn’t know well, and even then he was hardly what anyone would call chatty – except with her.

“I never really got it before we moved in together,” he continued, clearly doing his best not to start pacing. “I didn’t – after my mum died I didn’t have people who were important to me, not really. Then I met Jon and I had a best mate, and you lot all let me come over for the summer when I had nowhere else to go. And I thought I got it then, and I sort of did. But then you came along.”

He took a deep breath and redirected his gaze to her. His eyes were fiery and focused in a way she hadn’t ever seen them before. It made her heart stutter and her pulse race.

“You were – you _are_ one of the most important things in my life,” Gendry said with conviction.

Arya inhaled sharply and opened her mouth to respond, but Gendry was already starting again.

“And I’m not, you know, stupid. I knew you fancied me, and I obviously fancied you. I mean I thought about it _a lot_ ,” the tips of his ears turned a pink. “But I didn’t – this part isn’t easy to explain.”

“It’s okay,” Arya said, surprised she still had the mental faculty to speak. 

He smiled at her almost shyly, then took a deep breath. “You were this special, sacred thing to me. I never thought I would have anything like what we had, and I was _terrified_ of it changing,” he said. “And then that night you said you loved me,” he shook his head, “I wanted _so badly_ to love you, but I didn’t know how.”

Arya could feel her heartbeat in every part of her body, she could feel it pulsating in her ears and if Gendry didn’t stop looking at her like that she thought her heart might burst entirely. 

“And in my defense, you really sprung it on me,” Gendry said.

Arya swallowed and shrugged. “I hadn’t really meant to say it at the time,” she said. 

“Right,” he said, running his hand through his hair again. “That makes… yeah.”

Tears stung at the corner of her eyes, but Arya wasn’t quite sure why. She hadn’t expected him to ever give her an explanation, hadn’t really expected to ever talk with him about that night. Her words on the deck that night had been intended to let him off the hook.

She felt like she was watching the whole thing from above, like she’d floated out of her body and onto the ceiling to watch him make this confession.

“I –” Arya was interrupted by her buzzer sounding loudly. “Oh fucking – _Ned_.”

She stood and crossed to press the ‘Talk’ button. Ned had gotten wise to her trick of holding it down when she didn’t want to hear from him, though, and was already holding the one at the front door down.

“I know I’m early, but I refuse to apologize for striving for academic excellence,” Ned said loudly. “I’ve brought that stout you like so much, so just buzz me up and we can work until the game starts.”

There was nothing Ned could say to make her want to buzz him up at this moment, so Arya held down the ‘Talk’ button until Ned gave up holding the one downstairs.

“Something’s come up,” she said firmly into the intercom. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Arya closed her eyes and crossed her fingers, praying that Ned would leave it and go home. 

“Alright,” Ned said, his voice sounding a little concerned even through the electronic filter.

She would explain it to him tomorrow, after Gendry had gone. The thought was a little stab to her heart. He’d made his gesture, come to Oldtown to explain why he hadn’t loved her, and now he could leave.

She turned around to see him watching her, not with any particular emotion. It was more like he wanted to see whatever it is she would do next, because she was the most interesting and important thing in the room. 

Or his life.

“I appreciate –”

“I took Robert’s money,” Gendry blurted. 

“Oh,” Arya said. “Alright.”

“I took his money,” he repeated, the expression in his eyes shifting. “Because I love you.”

Arya had been kicked with less force. Her knees were a moment away from buckling, and even the part of her that hoped this was why he had come west – because she couldn’t not hope for that while he was standing in front of her – was in shock.

“You…” She had to be hallucinating.

“I love you,” he repeated, and his eyes were magic and home and _love_. “I’ve loved you since I was twenty-four. I spent so long worrying about change ruining us, but I already loved you. It just took me a bit to realize.”

“You love me,” Arya said, hysteria bubbling up in her chest. 

Gendry beamed at her. “Like breathing,” he said. “Doesn’t cost me any effort. I just do.”

Arya’s apartment was small, and the two of them were extremely motivated so it took her just two steps to meet Gendry in the middle. 

His lips were firm and soft, and his hand on the back of her neck was sure and steady. The moment crystalized, suspended in time and perfect. Then he tilted her head and ran his tongue along the seem of her lips – asking for permission – and it was like a starter pistol had gone off. 

Arya parted her lips and kissed him frantically, desperate to pour her heart into him, to make him feel every last drop of her love. His other hand came to the small of her back, moving her forward and almost up in a frenzied attempt to bring them closer together. Her hands wandered along his sides until she reached the hem of his shirt, and then they were underneath it. 

The firm planes of Gendry's chest were warm, and his muscles twitched a little under her fingertips as she skimmed them across his skin. She felt the corners of his mouth twitch up as he shivered again – her hands were cold – and she smiled back, the kiss becoming toothy for a moment.

Arya tugged his shirt up insistently, tickling the spot just underneath his armpit to force him to comply with her movement. He pulled back and yanked his shirt off, tossing it somewhere for them to hunt down later.

“I have more,” Gendry said, resting his forehead against hers while they regained their breath. 

“Tell me tomorrow,” Arya said, and pushed him back onto her couch. 

He fell back onto it and grinned wickedly at the implication. She rolled her eyes, but the effect was ruined by her basically jumping onto his lap. Arya tangled her hands in his hair and pulled his face up to hers to kiss him again, because she had spent so long not kissing him and she wanted to make up for lost time.

Gendry seemed to have similar thoughts, his hands gripping her hips firmly and guiding her to roll against him. Arya gasped at the sensation of _him_ under the rough denim of his jeans against _her_ – her underwear and thin linen romper so thin they felt essentially nonexistent – and Gendry must’ve really, really, really enjoyed the noise because the next time she rolled her hips he lifted his to grind against her.

She gasped again and whined when Gendry moved his lips off of hers to kiss along her jaw. Her fingers were completely tangled in his hair, tugging on it every time he thrusted up into her while he bit and sucked and kissed his way to the junction of her neck. Arya could feel the very beginnings of pressure building low in her belly, arousal burning through her veins like wildfire. 

Gendry moved his hands from her hips to cup her breasts, making his own little noise against her neck as he felt her nipples through the thin fabric and realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. She wasso caught up in the sensation of him everywhere that it took her a moment to realize he was fumbling with the buttons at the front of her romper.

“Those aren’t real,” she panted, barely slowing the hungry movement of her hips. 

Gendry hummed and moved his hands to the tie straps, fumbling with the sewn knots. 

“Those aren’t either,” she said.

“Why are you wearing a sodding Yi Ti finger trap,” Gendry grumbled and then nipped at the base of her neck. 

Arya gasped and giggled moving her hands from his hair to pull off the straps of her romper and shove it down until it pooled around her waist. 

“It’s called fashion, stupid,” she said, pulling back to get a better look at him. “Look it up.”

“Mhm,” Gendry said. All of his attention was on her chest, his eyes completely focused even as they looked a bit dazed. 

Arya giggled again, making her breasts jiggle almost in his face. Gendry dropped his head to one of them almost instantly, tongue licking first flat against her nipple and then flicking at it as it hardened. One hand dropped back down to her hip while the other palmed her other tit, his thumb dragging across her nipple.

He resumed the rolling of his hips against hers, except this time it was slow and purposeful. It was worse in the best possible way, and her body felt like it was blurring at the outlines. She was bleeding out of herself and into him, and he into her. Arya tilted her head back and rested her hands on the back of his neck and let him control the moment. 

Arya might let him control every moment of the rest of her life, if he made them all feel like _this_.

Gendry switched to her other nipple, her now wet skin prickling in the cool air of her apartment. Gently – but with the same purpose he ground against her with – he nipped the underside of her breast. 

“I love you,” she gasped.

He pulled back and looked up at her, face reverent. “Yeah?” he grinned.

“Aye,” Arya said, and moved down to kiss him again. 

He kissed her back greedily and then stood, looping his hands under her thighs. He moved carefully around the couch and back toward the general direction of the bed. Arya thrilled and sucked at his bottom lip, remembering all the times she’d imagined him doing this. 

Gendry tossed her down with only a bit of ceremony onto the bed. “Take your clothes off,” he said in a stern voice she’d never heard from him before, but that sent a jolt down to the heat almost throbbing between her legs. 

She scrambled to comply, watching as he unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down his pants and boxers.

“ _Holy_ – gods be good,” Arya muttered, eyebrows raised. 

Arya had seen Gendry naked twice before. Once when she’d burst into the bathroom on a desperate hunt for a tampon and once when she burst into his bedroom on the hunt for a sweatshirt to borrow. Neither time had been for very long, and he definitely hadn’t had the biggest erection she’d ever seen in person at the time.

Gendry’s cocky, dangerous smirk broke at her words and he laughed, full bodied and warm. She felt her face heat and she curled her knees toward her chest a bit, feeling embarrassed and a little silly.

He caught the shift in her mood and hurried to kneel on the bed. “No, love,” he said softly, rubbing his hands along the outside of her thighs. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Arya snorted. “Liar,” she accused, but she leaned back on the mattress slowly as she said it.

“Oh no,” Gendry smiled, his tone lightly scolding. “I would never.” 

He crawled over her, moving to kiss her again, gentle and coaxing. “Spent all week in Feastfires thinking it,” he whispered against her lips. 

He moved a hand up her thigh, her hip, her side to brush his thumb along the underside of her breast. 

“Bless the old gods,” he muttered between kisses that left her head spinning and all the breath gone from her body. 

Arya widened her legs and let her hands roam over his body. She wanted to know every inch of it, the way she knew every inch of his mind, his heart. Gendry made a small happy noise when she tilted her hips to resume her earlier movements, now gloriously unseparated from his skin by clothing. 

“Seven save me,” he said, moving his lips to her pulse point and thrusting against her little more firmly. 

Arya snickered and guided his mouth back to hers. One of his wandering hands slid from the outside of her thigh to stroke the inside of her thigh, then higher, and higher, until his fingers were dancing over her entrance and little bright lights were begging to burst behind her eyelids.

“Mother have mercy,” Gendry whispered and slid a finger inside of her, using his thumb to rub delicious slow circles on her clit. 

“Oh my gods,” Arya gasped, her body bowing of its own volition. 

“That too,” he chuckled, voice low and rough and perfect as he moved first one finger then two inside of her in earnest.

Arya was vaguely aware she was making a lot of noise, little ‘oh’s and gasps and breathy moans spilling out of her as Gendry did his level best to make her lose her mind. She was writhing beneath him, her blunted nails scratching down his back, egging him on. 

Her release built inside of her with a delicious pressure starting between her thighs and pressing itself up, up, up her spine. He must’ve felt it starting – or maybe he noticed the way she was basically rutting against his hand – because Gendry broke their kiss to bite down on the juncture of her neck and then everything unraveled all at once. 

Gendry slipped his fingers out of her, but continued rubbing circles on her clit when her orgasm finally ended. Arya whimpered and jerked her hips, closing her thighs to stop him or keep him going – she couldn’t decide between the two. 

He chuckled again and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Condom?” he asked, finally moving his hand from her clit and tapping her nose.

“’S in the drawer,” she waved her hand at the bedside table, breathing deeply to rally herself.

She heard him open the drawer and opened her eyes to watch him. He looked so much like the statue of the Smith she’d spent months dragging through tall grass, broad shoulders, firm muscles, strong arms, and an ass that was sculpted from marble. Arya didn’t miss the brief appearance of the divot between his brows when he frowned at seeing the box of condoms open and missing several. 

Arya rolled onto her side and rested her head on her hand. “I love you,” she said to him.

It was the best thing she had ever felt – including his fingers inside of her and his thumb on her clit – to say the words openly and without worry. 

His frown disappeared, replaced by a sweet smile that existed at odds with the arousal in his eyes. “How much?” he asked. He tore the little foil wrapper open.

“Oh loads,” she said, tracing the movement of his hands with her eyes as he rolled the condom down his cock. She sat up and reached out to take over, pumping him a few times. “And for _ages_ as well.”

Gendry’s smile grew wider and he took her head in his hands to kiss her again. He kissed her like it was the only thing he’d ever need to do for the rest of for his life. She kissed him back with the same passion, because she knew she would be perfectly content to spend the rest of her life kissing him.

She put her hand on his chest and pulled back as he started to lower her back down onto the mattress. 

“What? Is this –” he asked in a concerned haze.

“I want to be on top,” she said and laughed when he nodded enthusiastically.

In one fluid and extremely arousing movement Gendry lifted her up and flipped them around, so that she was straddling him. He sat up to return to what she now suspected was a mural of love bites and hickeys along her sternum. Arya dragged her center along his cock, half gasping each time the tip brushed her clit. 

Gendry’s hands were gripping her ass, pulling her down toward him gently but insistently. There was a coil of liquid metal in her low belly, rippling and burning with every second, every touch of his skin on hers. Arya pushed him down on the mattress and then reached down to guide him into her, determined to see the look on his face when he was seated inside of her. 

She nearly got her wish. His eyes fluttered and he pressed his head back as the head of his cock slid between her folds, but then Arya was lowering herself down and lost all presence of mind.

He felt – he _felt_. She threw her head back and her hands gripped the skin of Gendry’s chest tightly. A moan was pressed out of her in time with her movement downward, the stretch of him maddening and fucking perfect.

She must’ve said it aloud because Gendry rose halfway and then grabbed the back of her neck to pull her into a kiss. “ _You’re_ perfect,” he groaned as they broke apart and she began to move above him. 

It was too much and not enough all at once. Arya tried and failed to keep herself seated upright, moving lower and lower with Gendry’s every thrust upward until her nipples were scratching against his chest hair and her elbows were bent around his head. 

They weren’t properly kissing anymore, more gasping and moaning open mouthed against each other while Gendry’s hands roamed everywhere he could reach. They met on either side of her hips and he lifted her slightly and then brought her down as he thrust up and Arya saw white hot stars as he found that spot inside of her usually reserved for her vibrator. 

“Oh fuck,” she whimpered. 

Gendry made a noise that sounded like a growl, feral with desire and lifted her up and down again, and again, and again, relentless in his pursuit. Arya had her eyes screwed shut and she knew she was talking again, but only because she recognized the sound of her voice. The air was full of ‘oh fuck’ and ‘oh gods’ and ‘right there’ and most importantly ‘Gendry’.

“Gendry,” she gasped as he slipped one hand down to rub her clit.

“Gendry,” she moaned as he snapped his hips up with a vigor she didn’t know anyone could possess. 

There was nothing else in the room, in the city, in the world. It was just the two of them alone in the darkness behind her eyes, lit by mini explosions of color as he drove her to her edge. Arya stood with one foot out in the open air, supported on this side of her orgasm by the tips of her toes. 

“That’s it,” Gendry panted and groaned. “That’s it, love. _Fuck_.”

She was trying to tell him – _something_. Arya wasn’t sure, but he needed to know it, it was important –

“I love you,” the words tumbled in pieces out of her mouth as she came. 

It happened in every nerve in her body, her muscles spasming and limbs twitching, hips moving jerkily. Arya would have liked to think it was out of need to be sure he came too, but really it was involuntary.

He followed her a few moments later – saying her name and a stream of other words that were beautiful and unintelligible – and a completely different kind of heat filled her. 

Their chests heaved against each other in the stillness that followed. Arya couldn’t seem to lift herself up, couldn’t even fully open her eyes. She felt sated and honestly had no reason to move ever again, except that she wanted to be able to look at his face. 

With a superhuman amount of effort she pulled herself up and off of him. 

“I’m never doing anything else again,” Gendry vowed, still a little breathless. He rolled over to kiss her forehead. “I love you.”

Arya smiled happily. “I love you too,” she said. “More now, I think.”

“I knew you were only after me for my body,” he grinned tiredly.

Her brain buzzing too much to come up with a proper retort, so instead she moved to kiss him chastely. “I love you,” she said again.

Gendry hummed happily and kissed her lazily. “More fool you,” he whispered before tapping the tip of her nose.

*****

Later, after Arya had gotten up to pee and clean herself off, and Gendry had stood to dispose of the condom and snagged a packet of shortbread from the kitchen –

“Still keep your sweets in the first drawer,” he said giddily. 

They were watching the pregame coverage from her bed. Neither of them had bothered to put on their clothes, but Gendry had demanded to snuggle beneath her comforter when she refused to turn down her air-conditioner.

Currently Arya was laying half on top of him – largely ignoring the television and tracing her fingertip along the lines of his bull’s head tattoo – while he rubbed an absent minded hand up and down her back. 

“That feels nice,” he murmured, actually watching the coverage. 

“Do you think you’ll get another one?” she asked, head heavy on his chest.

“Might do,” Gendry said. He grinned wickedly. “Maybe in a more convenient place if you’re going to fiddle with that one as much.” 

Arya snorted. “Liar,” she said.

“You’ll have to wait and find out,” he said. 

She considered his words, angling her finger slightly so her nail traced lightly over the lines, enjoying the way his breath hitched. “So this ‘more’ you have,” she started. “Is it like a five year plan? Or…”

Gendry smiled. “In the broadest sense it’s a ‘rest of our lives’ plan,” he said. “But specifically it’s more of a three year one.”

Arya felt warm and bubbly from the the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. “Go on then,” she said, nudging him lightly.

“A little bird mentioned –”

“Jon.”

“A little bird,” Gendry stuck his tongue out at her, “mentioned your fieldwork stops next year while you work on finalizing your thesis.”

“Informative bird,” Arya said. “But accurate.”

“Mhm,” he said. “Here’s the plan: I find a job here – maybe with my old firm. And we get an apartment with a balcony overlooking the water, and you thank me by name in your thesis.”

She giggled, happier than she’d been in a long time, maybe ever. “And why would I do that?”

“Because while you’re off in the field this year I’ll be tending house, and when you’re home I’ll cook you dinner and bend you over our kitchen counter – or the couch – or kitchen table – or your desk,” he said, smiling wickedly. 

“And walk the dog,” he added.

Arya raised her eyebrows. “We’ll get a dog?” she asked hopefully.

Gendry nodded. “And when you’ve graduated I’ll have the money to take us wherever you want to go,” he said. “I _do_ think you’d like Storm’s End, but we could go to Winterfell. Or Riverrun. I’d even go back to King’s Landing if you wanted.”

“What if I want to move to Old Ghis?” she smiled.

“That’s perfect,” he said. “Because I thought I could use Robert’s money to start my own firm, wherever it is we land. And I already learned all about the pyramids of Old Ghis from the love of my life.”

Her toes curled and she gave a happy little shimmy at his words, that made him laugh and tickle her sides. 

“What do you think?” he asked, and Arya didn’t miss the sliver of doubt in his voice.

She placed a hand on either side of his face, making sure he could see the love and joy she felt. His lips quirked up in a smile that spread wider the longer they looked at each other. 

“I love it,” she said softly. “It’s perfect.” She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, reveling in the way he beamed at her.

“I’m including marriage in this,” he said seriously. “You know, eventually.” 

Arya rolled her eyes. “No, really?” she said sarcastically, poking him in the side. “As if we could share a pyramid in Old Ghis unmarried.” 

He laughed, and laughed louder as she poked and tickled him. Gendry resisted her move to straddle him, instead turning his fingers on her to get her laughing. Arya giggled and thrashed half-heartedly in his arms. 

He made a strange noise when he tickled over her lower abdomen, his fingers dancing around where her scars were – not because of the scars, but because he’d expected her to wriggle more.

“You used to be ticklish here,” he said softly.

“There’s some nerve damage from the surgery… and before,” she shrugged, keeping her voice light.

“So you can’t feel this?” he asked, tracing along the longest of her scars.

“I mean, I can tell you’re touching me,” Arya said. 

Gendry moved over her, kneeling between her legs and tracing his fingers on and around her scars. “But can you feel it?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I can’t tell,” she said honestly, then she grinned. “Maybe if I close my eyes.”

The last thing she saw before settling back on the bed and closing her eyes were his eyes twinkling dangerously. 

He moved around, the sheets rustling as he positioned himself better. Then he kissed her just above her navel. “What about that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“And this?” Gendry kissed lower, his lips just barely brushing one of her scars.

“Yes.”

“And this?” he asked. It was odd, because she could feel his lips around the edges of her scar, but not on it. She shook her head and Gendry hummed thoughtfully.

“What about here?” It was the same feeling, higher and to the right. She shook her head. 

“Surely you can feel _this?_ ” Gendry said, voice low. 

Arya opened her mouth to inform him that that time she’d felt nothing at all, when he ran the flat of his tongue along her slit. Her hips jerked and she let out a surprised noise that had him chuckling against her. 

He lapped at her slowly, then faster until she tumbling apart, twisting her head against the pillow and calling out his name and that she loved him and a fair few inventive swears. When she had bones in her body again – or at least control of them – she pulled him up to her, kissing him and tasting herself on his tongue. 

A good while later Gendry was pulling on his clothes while she wrapped herself in a peach silk robe that proved quite the distraction for him. 

“Where are you going?” she whined.

The tips of his ears turned pink. “I left my bag in the car,” he mumbled as if hoping she wouldn’t catch what he said.

Her eyebrows shot up. “You brought a bag?” she laughed.

“I told you this was a big gesture,” he said a little stiffly. “I’m here for the week, taking interviews. Thought I might – you know, stay here.”

Arya beamed at him. “You love me,” she said, feeling lighter than air and warm as sunshine.

“I love you,” he confirmed.

“Like breathing,” she said, remembering his words from earlier that day. 

Gendry smiled broadly and openly. “Just like that,” he confirmed.

*****

“I don’t want to get engaged until after I finish my PhD,” she reminded him loudly as she walked into the room.

“Mhm,” Gendry said, not looking up from his computer. 

“I’m only reminding you because I know how you get carried away,” Arya said, taking a seat in her desk chair and rolling it over next to his.

“Ah yes,” he drawled. “I’d forgotten about my habit of spontaneously proposing to you.”

It was early fall and they were _supposed_ to be getting ready for a dinner to celebrate the beginning of Arya’s last year at Oldtown University. Arya was half ready, wearing a pale yellow dress that she knew Gendry found immensely distracting – he had ordered her not wear it to his company’s annual garden party a few months ago – and her hair mostly done being pinned up in braids that would make even Sansa jealous. 

Gendry was still sitting shirtless in a pair of sweats after his shower, preoccupied with his fantasy football lineup. 

“I know how excited you get when Jon comes round,” Arya said, bringing her hand up to toy with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

Gendry turned to her so she could see him roll his eyes. “I’m not going to propose to you in front of your brothers,” he said.

Arya quirked an eyebrow up. _Is that so?_

“Yes,” he tapped her on the nose before kissing her chastely. “Because I’d very much like to fuck you directly after. It’s part of my plan.”

“See? You have a plan,” Arya said, moving her chair over to allow him to get out of his own.

“You’ve caught me,” he said as he walked out of their study and down the hall to their bedroom. “I do indeed plan to marry you – even after you cheated during our match last week –”

“I didn’t cheat,” Arya interrupted. “Bran, Rickon, and I simply made a three way trade that –”

Gendry snorted. “Everyone knows Bran’s team is a graveyard of your and Rickon’s discarded players,” he said. 

Arya walked into the bathroom to finish her hair and apply her makeup. “Prove it!” she called.

“I would be more motivated to if you two were any good!” Gendry called back. 

Arya rolled her eyes and finished braiding her hair. It might be early fall, but Oldtown was still sweltering and Gendry still gave her grief about making the apartment a –

“Bloody uninhabitable icebox.”

Every time she was home alone, meaning she was wearing her hair – which had grown past her shoulders – up at every opportunity. 

She heard him moving about in the living room, and stuck her head out the door to return to her original topic.

“I’m just saying,” she paused to apply her mascara, “you might be feeling like I’m basically done since this is my last year. And get carried away.”

“Nah,” Gendry said easily, walking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

He was wearing navy slacks and a white button up – an outfit Arya found so distracting she insisted he wear it tonight – and wore the watch she’d gotten him for last year’s Candlenights. The sport coat that went with the slacks was probably draped across the arm of the couch.

Arya studied his face in the mirror. It was almost more familiar than her own, his sea blue eyes, the quirk of his lips, the neat beard he favored these days, the crinkle at the corners of his eyes as he smiled. He was watching her face, his eyes tracing over her features reverently. 

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Positive,” he said, smirking. “The biggest plan I have for tonight is picking up the bill.” He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “And pulling with you.” 

“It’s just that Carellen asked me about my ring size a bit ago,” Arya said.

Gendry shrugged. “Maybe Carellen’s planning to propose,” he said.

“Somehow I find that unlikely,” Arya laughed, twisting in his grip so she was facing him, her hands resting on his forearms.

“More fool her,” Gendry said seriously. “It’s mental to me that you aren’t constantly bombarded by proposals by people who aren’t under strict orders not to.” 

She stood up on her tip toes to kiss him. “That was a very good line,” she said.

“Thank you, I’ve been practicing,” he said. Then he sighed. “Alright, time to go.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” Arya laughed, following him out of the bathroom.

“I’m not looking forward to an hour of Jon and Robb playing at being threatening older brothers,” Gendry sighed. “It’s embarrassing and the waiter _always_ thinks they’re being serious.”

“I know,” she laughed. “I love it, it’s amazing. They’ll stop eventually. Probably.”

“Bet if I proposed at dinner they’d knock it off,” Gendry said, pulling on his shoes and stuffing his wallet and keys into his pockets. 

“Yes, but then I’d say no,” Arya said, pulling on her heels. “Shite, where is my phone?” 

“Saw it in the kitchen,” Gendry said distractedly, looking at his phone. “They’re waiting for us. Apparently we’re late as always.” 

“As if Jon’s ever been on time before in his life,” Arya scoffed, clacking off to the kitchen. 

She picked up the phone she’d purposefully left on top of their toaster oven and dropped it into her purse. With a quick glance to be sure Gendry wasn’t standing in the doorway watching her – a habit of his – she jumped up on the counter, teetering a bit as she reached up and over to open the cabinet over the fridge. 

Her heart raced as her fingertips skirted over the top of the little velvet box he’d stashed up there. She shut the cabinet quietly and slipped back to the floor, trying to decide if she was disappointed he wasn’t bringing it or glad he’d listened to her. 

“Fifteen more minutes and legally I don’t have to go to this,” Gendry called. 

Arya smiled and settled on glad. He was still looking at his phone when she walked to the front door.

“I’m going to hide it somewhere else if you keep checking it every time we go out,” he said, smiling at her cockily.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” she said, opening the front door. “Ready?”

Gendry reached out and took her hand. “You know I love you, don’t you?” he asked.

Arya’s heart was a seabird with a warm updraft, soaring far above and truly, utterly free. “I know,” she kissed their intertwined fingers lightly. “Let's go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and for all your kind words!

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a reward to myself for finishing my application to grad school, so if you like it please send me good vibes!


End file.
